Who are you now who follows me about
asking me questions I can't answer
where once I was sharp and so alive
wind in my hair and filled with romance

you there, take this cloak of loneliness
to you it looks like something else
old canvas tarp or former main sail
scraps of life left from time on the edge

where there was once a log and plans
the things that dreams were made of
like grand brigantines called "Romance"
high seas now drama in backyard tales

the shade tree was our tall stout mast
the canvas was newer then, but now
wrap me tighter in its gritty cloth
well worn, patched and stitched like me

unsightly old, daft in no conversation
lost in thoughts, pull it 'round me
and leave me smelling the memories
so many of them encased in that wrap

until my skin fits around it more than it fits
around me, see both showing threadbare
here and there where I slept and worked
in it more than I should the romance gone

where even the birds and yard rabbits
grew tired of seeing me in it day in
and day out and go scampering away
and leaving me even more lonely if ...

I were to notice, I would have noticed
a year or two ago had it been sounds
of screamng gulls and shell seekers
I heard instead of crows and city traffic

Harbingers we cannot seem to leave
letting us know the sails are slack
and so are our minds with romance gone
plans and loving and ... and where is he

we lived to see the sea, didn't we,
but we didn't, did we, please explain
this canvas, this worn bit of main sail
and why I still cling to it just as it is

some lost memory trying to surface
there was a "we" and bright white sheets
and nights under bright stars with us
or the boat's rocking us to sweet sleep

where once a lover pulled a blanket
over us as we sat wrapped in each other
(the need has made me quite mad)
the sound of the water lapping at anchor

here birds twittered, rabbits stopped
chewing and stood high in excitement
to look our direction wondering at
the words and sounds of busy sharing.

It made life then, and something we
called "romance" and liked that word
and built love and even more reason
for feeling and living full that eon ago

our backyard was that grand brigantine
visiting ports o' call around the world
tales -- maybe why I cannot leave here
where this ship still sadly takes me now

wasn't that long ago this skin was so,
so sensitive to touch and the wonderful
sea-clean smell of something we called
"oneness" in our one to one wrap and tack

that canvas holds one so very lonely
how is it something so good fells us
makes us so satisfied and so sad
love we can lose and sometimes find

but romance joyfully consumes us
giving us so much when we find it
taking so much away when it's gone
loneliness taking its toil day by day

a mercy for one on a widow's walk
I scan the horizon and think I see him.
Captain beckons me to feel a oneness
in waves of need sweeping over me

I'll take that canvas and hoist it soon
just waiting for the tides and right time
and go sailing with you once again, lover
in shimmering lights and glorious sunsets

I have clung to this canvas for the trip
throughout time to that forever romance
or tightly wrap myself in it one last time
to go over the side and into the brine.

(c) 2002 Rennie Lorca