For two weeks I bathed deep in the sweat of whiskey.
Submerged vocals yawed to 3am caresses together, together.

The silken bed turns itself over, its base an earthquake.
Listerine breath hurls to vortex the two years of refraining

from the holy riptide– how its arms reach
and withdraw, reach and withdraw.

You would drown in the salt of married shells,
sheathe your crackled forearm in the tide’s tattoo.

You would let it embrace and clear
your pearls. Thus begins the tide anew.

(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review)