Unfathomable Will

I found the city a pitiless thing.
It smelled of steel, concrete and the bay.
I use to sit on the sea wall that edged 
my old college condo, the one I shared
with a black cat, and sing Otis Redding-
skipping the whistling part of his song
because my lips could never purse the 
right tune- and watch the tide roll in 
catching rainbows in the sun’s glint.

It  was the inhabitants I couldn’t take,
all rude and loud, smelling of salt
and stale fish scales and crab shells,
so snared in tiny toils, frail and idle,
their itching needs thirsty and lusty.  
I lost my wonder in the traffic dust,
the night haze and starless nights.
I avoided touching that life less 
it should defile me in its lost light,
night terrors and phantasms.

Then, in the small church in 
the out of the way corner,
I found her, a strange vision 
trembling, ready to emerge
just past the reach of my mind
and the urge of my will. She existed 
beyond all jaded aims and 
drab  dissemblements,
something unfounded, unbuilt
but ready, waiting to be built on.

On my birthday she bought me 
a lounge chair to grace my 
unfurnished balcony, on the 
very day I purchased my own.
And there we sat (my desire),
watching the city unseal itself
across from me in a sweltering love,
constantly revealed, being 
forever built and rebuilt on
in pain and unfathomable will.