it’s not stealing it’s borrowing so i borrow a hose from down the dock to fill freshwater into leaking freshwater tank, a good portion of which will leak and bilge pump out into the sea

last night’s words went
unwritten.

the computer battery
died
and i did not have
electricity
for charge.
yes, i had plenty
of paper and ink,
though did not
use them.
for someone
of my age,
perhaps
it is that writing with
pen and paper
is associated with
school and compulsion.
neither did i ever much
enjoy.
though i call this
writing
a compulsion,
this writing
that i do now
on my aging computer,
its brief battery.

too charged,
i switch morning
cup from
caffeinated to de.
it chortles
atop heat of flame
just the same.
fat from animal
dissolves into it,
into me,
just the same.
again i choose
to unplug from
the source of power,
and again
i measure my time in
the inexorable decline
of battery.
much of my life,
yes,
i have wished for
more time.
and here,
here today i sit
on a pale blue
fiberglass sailboat,
with time choking me.
a woman who plants
thorns in my pale heart,
earlier she shares
a photo
of a flower,
its thin stem
wrapped tightly
in its own tendril.
the bloom, effusive,
above such stricture.
and yes, it is
said that we must be
careful
for what we wish for.
and yes, the deck
is pale blue
to the point of fading
altogether.

i am still
out of tune
with the harmony of
these wishes come true;
time, stretching vast
and undrinkable
as ocean.
and compulsion,
to continue in
my wishing.
that wish itself
a wish,
wrapped tightly around itself.

last night’s words
were lost
in an attempt to save
the seven daily dollars
it costs me
to access electricity.
while i slept,
lost words charged,
changed,
into something else
by morning light.