WELCOME HOME
(for Mellie)
~ Lisa Ann Reilich
The sun gleams and shatters
on the chop of the waves as
this ferry takes me home to you
through the stiff deep cold cutting,
rolling and rocking like a childhood
once mine, alive now only in my mind —
always tied to one another by water,
always heartbeats away and across
the water, my love, no loss is possible
when we are one with the water’s deep
embrace, now home, never without
the love that remains.
From the poetry collection — THE SHAPE OF WATER — by Lisa Ann Reilich, poem originally published January 2025
***