For us no harm, no lost limb
or crushed bone.
The Gulf a theater,
we audience to our own
bombardments.
The weather was mild.
That spring birds came to the ship.
At night we smelled the landwind
and imagined new animals
couched in the dark under bare branch.
A great curve downward and away,
the earth returns us to our loves.
A warm wind pesters the ship.
It’s time to wake reliefs.
And there you were on the pier, waving,
etching the air with cries, and I was home.