Other people’s lives
sink and swell around you,
lapping at your shifting rim,
leaving their debris.
Billowing on every side,
they rush and then recede.
They wash across your beaches.
You feel a slow erosion.
Shoring up your sea walls,
you study the morning sky.
You listen to the wind’s tales
and come to fear the deep.
In your archipelago,
now and then a mooring breaks.
The tide of events comes in
and carries a little more of you
out to sea.