faith’s a funny thing, but you
knew that, I’m sure,
when you washed up tangled
in kelp on that rain beaten shore,
and when I took your hand and
wiped the sand from your cheek,
the fur of your fathers
shed in a heap at the feet of
our bed you said with salt on your tongue
that faith’s a lot like water when
the sea fills your lungs and you
hold it in your palms with your fingers
pinched tight but it slips through the
cracks and tips into the night,
you can’t hold water in your hands
but damn it, you can try, and I think
with those words you started to cry,
faith’s a funny thing, but you
knew that, I know,
when you said I was waiting
for him to come home
even after the storm had stolen
back all the tides, just a fisherman’s wife
with a fisherman’s pride, and I
filled that sea with seven sick tears,
I lied to that sea so that you could be here,
and you are like holding
water in my hands,
and you are like swimming back
to the mainland,
and I’ll hide those furs that fell
at our feet on that very first day,
at our very first meeting when you said
faith’s a funny thing, you see?
I see.