The Boat I’m Building You
By: Robin Cedar
Questions I haven’t asked pearl in my mouth – what happens when you must sail towards that horizon, what happens when I have to let you go? I will wade out to guide you because that is what a daughter is meant to do, but every horizon looks flat from this distance. The closer we get to that line the more the revolving blue roils. As I guide your boat, the water will rise until there is nothing of me above the water. In this way, I will be more intimate with death than ever before. It will feel like belonging, bobbing like that – as if I’ve convinced you to let me come with you. But you have asked this task of me and I can’t deny you. I would build my own boat but for now my place is on the land. Tell me I am loyal, that I should become your flotsam. Your burial at sea will mean there is nothing like the sea left inside of me. Building this boat is practice for being empty. 53