Sails Away

Two sailboats, anchors raised, will drift apart.
Is that what love demands then, ties that bind?
Can it sustain a separated heart,
or must it seek, unreasoning and blind,

entanglement with its committed twin,
and absent such entanglement, collapse,
before it's had occasion to begin,
to feed then on the remnants and the scraps,

the embers of a tepid, dormant fire,
while others burn to cinders on a flame
consuming them from head to toe, entire,
and happily, with but themselves to blame.

They seek it, for what's life if not this burn?
Two sailboats start to drift apart. Return.

Author notes: image from contest