She called to him
Beneath a veil of night
When summer wore
Its hottest mask
Wax and dripping
Onto the earth
Leaving sticky puddles
Drenched and drying fast.
He was ill equipped
From skin to guts
No cape in his wardrobe
Or spectacles to hide his eyes
Paralyzed
By the fear–
No not the fear–
The knowing.
Knowing that his will
To fight for love
Was vacuum packed
And wrapped in moth balls,
It wreaked of age and of
The stench of desperate attempts
And falls–
Memories of unanswered calls.
Calls for him to be the one
The victor in the storm
Brimming to capacity
With strength enough to
Hold her heart–
At least her hand–
Across jagged tightropes
Stretching over pits of sand.
Quicksand questions
Lined with glue
Meant to close the chasm
Between expectation and
What is true–
Catechisms from the past
Never brought to light
Long enough
For queries to last.
What lasted was uncertainties
And now he paid the price
Not wanting to lose
Her
But unprepared to fight
All he could muster
Was a broken hero’s
Journey into night.
Night fell
Long past its time as
Summer solstice
Lazily drew its haze
Upon a sultry sky–
Like the afterglow
Of a camera’s flash
Imprinted behind the eye.
Eyes heavy with fatigue
Propped open by ambition
He pulled his jeans up high
Belted at the waist
Sat on the dew-drenched seat
Slicing through salt
Like he was a Sodomite Sculptor
Entering the competition.
A competition
Against himself
Against the doubt
Bubbling through
His tightening veins
Waking him from
Slumber of uncertainty to
Valor through adversity.
Adverse conditions
In the black
Gave way
As light he carried
Burned a path
Radiant as day–
Along the way he set it down
The dread that he had nothing to give.
He gave her a coordinate–
It was all he had–
A map written in the air
To help her find him
Approaching beneath a beacon
Brave and bright
Like a compass
More meticulous than starlight.
Starlight led her way
Across a stretch of sand
The edge of land
And water
Lapping against her skin
Deep and
Deeper still
She wandered toward the glow.
Glowing first as though a firefly
Small and far away
His vessel cutting through
The foam, mocking delay
For time no longer mattered
As slow their paths came near
He, soaked with ocean
She, doused in tears.
Her tears were anvils
From her soul
Releasing injured expectation
She felt her heaviness go–
Fly
Into the heavens
Where drafts outweighed
The currents swirling down below.
She never saw below
The hidden treasure trove
Inside his hidden space
The place
Where thought and emotion
Ruptured like burdened banks
To flood his heart and
Overflow–
Overflows of adrenaline
Like rain
Saturated and drowned his pain
Leaving only
In the boat
He and the lighthouse he kept
For her
A flame no longer detained.
No act of the Furies could detain
His passage toward her eyes
The two he knew without seeing
He could feel at the side of his neck,
Glimpse behind the pillow
Where once she lay
Inside his dreams
And–in the middle of day.
The glow began to grow
He rowed like a man
Pursued by death
And she
Released a laugh
That tore his heart
From two parts into one–
He dropped the oars so he could run.
He ran to just before her
Then stopped to etch her
All
Inside his mind
Where secrets forever kept
Could burrow, rest and hide,
"I came for you,"
He said–
She already knew
But she feigned a big surprise,
"I wondered at that
single point
upon the horizon growing
never knowing
whether I should run away
or stay."
"I am glad you stayed,"
He kicked some sand
Between his shoes
And cleared his tightening throat,
"Now that you have
would you allow
this reluctant pirate
to stay here, too?"
She blew out the candle
Burning above his face–
No need to keep it lit
Inside this place
Where journey’s end
Had come to rest–
"I never really lost you,” he said–
"Then I was never really lost."
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Jill Szoo Wilson 