Shoreline

Raven pale, folded in winter.  My nest of broken verse and delicate holy.  I've seen the city shimmer.  I've watched the shoreline change.  Bones of something vast and half-buried, as stone and shale.  Shadows bleached for passing, or cursory glances.  I hunt affection in the eyes of distant friends.  They know not how it keeps me.  Forcing pulse and purpose; these kindest thoughts from almost strangers.  Each and every night.  Each and every war.  My knees upon the ice.  Kay's colours.  Kay's eternity.  Deathless, fractal.  Held in shapeshift of dusk and dawn.  My lost lover's face launching a thousand ships, with temple and flame.  Ribbon of silk and cream.  Sisters and merchants.  Those ships will forever pass me by, though I'm treated so kindly by daughters.  They know not how it keeps me.  I can never be, and never was.  Yet I still find my words in her mouth, and my mouth in her name.  Darkling white, in scented cloth of the harbour.  I was standing beside my mother's child.  Falling away again, and again.  She sees the city shimmer.  She watches the shoreline change.  Of colours, and eternity.