Holding The Ocean Together With Duct Tape

How old am I? Old enough
to discover there are no permanent fixes,
no single moment we can call ourselves
Complete. We are held together
with patches and duct tape.
The tape has softened to silk
frayed along its edges, unsticky
where it’s picked up lint along the way.
Let’s pray it holds as we move into deep water.

And if it doesn’t?
A leak, a break in the line that
sews us together,
that sows a line of seeds—
tears and trials and travels
laughter and crowds, books and the quiet
Oh the waves of experience and emotion
the moments we move through, they
roll in and out like tides and storms at sea.
Who are we that these tides recede to?
Who are we that these storms become when calmed?
What ocean are we?