In a Slow Drift
I won’t let you slip into the fog off the shoreline,
so that when I call out to you, you don’t even hear your name.
The truth is… it’s too sad to admit..that we have changed,
both of us and now, how easily all our wildly woven history,
loosens and drifts in tattered life boats, carrying nothing to save.
I protest and shake my fists to the sky, I won’t surrender, not this one
not this gift!…and how cruel to give it, tell me it’s mine, only to take it away!
Like this, in a slow drift that if we don’t pay attention, we might not perceive,
in small increments of invisibility, we find less to love about each other.
Where’s our laughter, our blood, our dreams, and what are we without them?
Four bells, the haze has muddled our horizons, as we sit in silence, dazed.
Not a story left to tell, not a plan, not a memory, not even a kiss, really…really?
I don’t accept it ends like this..words choking in our throats, our hearts winding down,
across a dinner table, catatonic, barely whispering, every sentence ending in the middle
It’s not befitting to the memory of our slow dance of love, to end in a slow drift away.
Karima Hoisan
January 15, 2019
Costa Rica
Digital Rabbit Hole 
Wow. How sad is this? You certainly capture the feeling of loss and the helplessness of not being able to hang on to something/someone of importance to us. The crushing sense of inevitability. Of watching it drift away from our fingertips. You capture that perfectly and painfully well. Your poetry is much like painting with ghosts and profound emotions. Mystical and truthful.
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Thank you so much Tube:)You are my first and only comment, and I am thinking that for most people, it was too much raw honesty and painful observation, and I think people just didn’t know what to say. I can understand that really, but I’m glad that you found the words and very eloquent ones at that.. You really see me:)
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What a beautiful heart wrenching piece this is Karima! As I have said many times, the poet speaks for us, as you have done so eloquently here. How many of us have “sat across a table, catatonic, barely whispering, every sentence ending in the middle.” I am again, so impressed, that you are able to conjure up the words that speak to so many of us. Thank you.
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Thank you for your beautiful comment Hoyt. I think this poem scared off a few people as only you and Tubeguy could express how it made you feel. This is a matter of the poet dragging up old visions and laying them down as if they were today:) Some people IMd me and actually asked if I was ok? smiles..I think many times, when we are going through something like this..we don’t have the words to describe it, but then in retrospect, the words come easier as we review the scene in our minds, with less emotion and more detail:)Thanks for seeing into this one:):) and sharing your thoughts with me:)
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