Scales

We've been floating on this ocean
Oh, for months now
and I can feel the saltwater seeping in our spines.
Is it to blame for the way our love turned dry and salty?

Barnacles crust the tips of my outstretched fingers  
the edges of my lips, hollows of my neck.
The places you no longer touch.

This seaweed bed can hold exactly one of us
and when we were perfectly mirrored halves we fit,
on this platform of green and murky browns.

But now iridescent fish are nibbling beneath us
making the spaces between each strand of ropey green separate.
Their unrelenting hunger draws your ever-cooling heart away from mine.  
But sometimes my pruned feet gravitate towards yours on watery nights
when phosphorescent plankton illuminate the space between our sleeping forms.

The green-tinged tendrils of my hair are the only part of me  
that makes good on the burning desire to hold you once more.
They spread through the water to tickle the contours of your face
and you brush them off with pickled hands.

I can no longer be uncertain
that we are sinking to the deep
with every condemning wave, as our bodies separate.

And in the last moment before the currents drew us down
I reached my hand to yours.
But all I felt were scales.