to think ourselves slaves
to affection—
to assume what we seek
above all is closeness.
But in truth,
what we crave is a charmed
combination
of intimacy
and its strange cousin:
remoteness.
Perhaps that's why
in centuries past,
brave men
would helm the sterns
of great boats,
and sail off Earth's edge
into waters unknown,
only to yearn
for the first sight of land
and dream,
beneath rapturous
blazes of stars,
of supply
and demand, and their dull
lives back home.
