Nothing At All

I often dream of losing it all
to fire, flood, or fleeing,
and romanticize my deportation
back to my homeland shores,
where I’d buy a house near the Cornish sea,
in an unassuming coastal town
that’s tucked away from tourism,
and huddles boats in coves.

Maybe one day I’d paint them,
on a whim, when words are not enough
to capture how they bob about,
in no particular hurry,
with scars along their bellies
that mark of a bolder past
where they had purpose beyond their staying afloat.

Retired to the curiosity
of those who wonder where they’ve been,
what they’ve held, and what they’ve seen,
they’re anchored for eternity
in the salty chill of an English port,
whose only sweetness comes in tea
that steams in foggy windows,
lit by yellow lamps for reading,
with faces propped on chins in hands,
dreaming out across the water
to top the waves with wonder.

Cresting and collapsing,
our sacrificial offerings
are washed against the rocks and lost
so we may live without those needs,
those fantasies and fallacies,
that try to trick us out of time
that’s better spent distilling rhyme
from dreams (not fears) where kingdoms fall,
and you’re left with everything,
which is nothing at all.