love comes back

      harder

falling in love with you

for the second time

is trying to sail back to the harbour

against a headwind

that I hardly felt as a tailwind

sailing out

             so confident

though I’ve never been on a boat

it’s perfect saying things like

“catch my drift?”

     & you do

but to borrow another line

from Talking Heads

“how did I get here?”

            & now

how do I get back?

how careless of me

to have arrived at this party

so overexcited

    but so emotionally

  underprepared

(is anyone ever just

     ‘whelmed’?)

promising myself

these spirits (clearly)

too much for just

one person alone

although I really

go in for that feeling

 where I weigh

       nothing

   at the top

of the trampoline’s vault

    when the valium

counterbalances the molly

         when left

  to my own devices

I get high on my own supply

     when in my hands

these tattered sails / this

mostly empty bottle

     valiantly I sense

my back’s against the wall

        though I know

I’ve never looked cool

standing alone at a party

I stumble outside

to feel the same wind

from earlier in the poem

hit me suddenly

    & when that rush subsides

lying down

it’s when the trampoline

   stops bouncing

when the boat stops pitching

     that’s when

love comes back