You Didn'T Want To Go To The Sea Poem by Michael C. Peterson

You didn't want to go to the sea, the base
nearby, its simple name, north-
something or something once exact, crackling
lately only as
lack-of-effort, short-of-funding, post-ascendant—
nothing wishes fixity with
been-there-done-that—
you should know.
You didn't want to go. But you ate lunch
generously with those you took
not behind the deserted commissary, its
sparse flowers, inchoate sun,
or with your backs up to the barracks but
beyond the parade-ground where
the ocean drives it slag through tidal flats
where, you advised
there's vantage
but where too you asked
in your voice that did not dare anything
if you flew from this place
if you descended to the water could you get back
could you manage
and then you were the first and it surprised
you, that anyone would follow
for what you had wanted to say did not
inhabit others, you
who would have been there and done this
who would be back shortly
who would go to the dead and love them.