I left you once, sitting right there on the sand.
Numb, purple toes with flecks of gold.
The wind and the water, the black soft wood;
I’ll take their place, if they take mine.
And like that, we’re back to the place,
a time before I knew you, before the copper,
before the light in your hair and the taste in my mouth:
when I could love you for a time.