How does a child feel

the texture of absent love but as a passage

void of susurrus leaves and the gentle graze of skin on skin.

He makes a choice

not of a dying forest tree nor flattened curve in pallid glory

spreading vermin to all in touch, but to brace himself on distant shores.

The child stands shivering

a darkened log sunk in the shallow sands facing

the sparkling sea, shouldering the pier open to the chill of the void.

A little girl skips along

leaping off the pier in a gleeful shriek, his breath hitches

at outstretched arms catching hold, raising her to the blue sky.

A dark splinter tears away

bleeding black, suppressed void springing

in a leak, splintering pain opening his eyes to the emerald sea.

A waiting storm breaks, shifting the mooring sands,

the child is thrown out to sea, looking over his right shoulder,

but it was a dark unrevealing night of the secrets that lay beyond.

Days and nights pass

in whipping blades and icy wetness until he wakes

one day to a blue sky. A faint hum susurrates, calling the trembling child.

Letting go the surface light

he slips underneath parting the blue waters, haunted eyes

drawn to a whale suspended asleep amid the sweeping currents.

Slanting rays gleam magical.

A curious eye opens. The child shrinks

under its open gaze, choked desire drawing him to the wakening whale.

Her hum reverberates

riffling through the trembling boy, splinters dislodge

drawing darkened trails. The whale draws close through the rolling sea.

Ashamed, the child breaks away

eyes shut tight waiting in furious heat for the lapping current

in the wake of a parting whale, soon a shadow in the distant gloom.

The whale brushes, a flipper enfolds,

the agony of the caress sends rills of shivers, the child tumbles

breaking from the hum of the whale, then returning in awkward rolls

in the strange dance of letting love swell in the void.