Erica Jong

26 March 1942 / New York City

This Element

Looking for a place
where we might turn off
the inner dialogue,
the monologue
of futures & regrets,
of pasts not past enough
& futures that may never come
to pass,
we found this boat
bobbing in the blue,
this refuge amid reefs,
this white hull
within this azure sibilance of sea,
this central rocking
so like the rocking
before birth.

Venus was born of the waters,
borne over them
to teach us about love-
our only sail
on the seas of our lives
as death is
our only anchor.

If we return again & again
to the sea
both in our dreams
& for our love affairs
it is because
this element alone
understands our pasts
& futures
as she makes them

one.
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