In the old sailor prayers their songs go —-

“9 waves, 9 tides, 9 times the sea has come.”

I’ve known only 3 ocean storms. I know,

I’m told, the gods of the sea are gruesome.

Even now, with the rain falling in sheets,

something vast and deep, full of roiling clouds

with long, tangled strands that lurches and beats

on the deck, howling through the stays and shrouds,

halyards and braces, hungers. I hunger,

too. 3 times this hunger has come. With you,

like the old sea prayers, I would make it 9.

I am full of lascivious anger —-

but you knew that when you kissed me. You knew

this storm would be both grotesque and divine.