Our wedding night you set out alone
in an open boat on the open sea.
I cannot say we were married yet.
Please take me with you.
The open sea, like a book is open,
a page at a time, so, mostly closed.
The sea closes over my head, I dream.
Please take me with you.
A book, which is bound both face to face
and back to back, and blind both ways.
No one has taught me how to read.
Please take me with you.
No one has taught me how to swim,
to pledge my hands up over my head
and pull them back, strongly and surely.
Please take me with you.
Over my head: where are you going?
Take me, or bring me. I would have been brought.
This must have happened before, in a book?
Please take me with you.
Happened before, in Trachis, or Venice,
in Brittany; always close to the sea.
I want to get to the bottom of it.
Please take me with you.
Each wave slides to the bottom of it.
Each page also: so I dream.
I am a service I cannot yet read.
Please take me with you.
I am your letters, cast on the waters,
spelling out something you may not forget.
In time, I would learn to be your wife.
Please take me with you.
