Caron Andregg - Poem

I never meant to make you so important
Never intended that my life would one day 
Pivot about the axis of your being
Like a sailboat turning hard upon the mast
From lazy down-wind drifting to a sharp and 
Screaming tack; closed-hauled, heeled hard over 
Racing faster against the wind than ever with it.

I wanted to cherish you with my hands
Make you an icon of my body's lost religion
A touching-statue for those blind in spirit.
But you would not sit still for it, not for a minute
And I, having no convenient leash, had no say in it 
At all, but only those few moments to watch
As you swam carelessly to the horizon and away.

Even that last letter was no firm good-bye
Just a smoke-signal farewell, a marker
For the place you once had been, but were no more
Which I read once more lightly before I left you
Crumpled under the wheels of my fast car.