knifing
through the diatoms
you worry that her life has become
a pale green softness
while yours comprises raggedy slips and stories
of soured limes and bile
you steer your
craft upon the obsidian sea
the cold stars
twinkling on the flint edge of
winter’s waves
you have humbled
yourself leaning
upon the steel-strung rail
worshipping
waters
with a pint of gin
and your face as grey as monday’s laundry
you marveled how the taste of blood
is the taste of sea
is the taste of tears
and how
those letters hurt, the stabbing scent of
soap and cinnamon the razor sting of
little teeth
her little mouth
moist briny lips of mollusks rubbed against
a fresh rope cut
shell her tiny hands small finger-buds of
coral sweet
polyps of purity
bending and adapting and
it doesn’t
matter now
nineteen hundred
something or other
when fathers graspt the things they feared
they’d
miss
and never graspt the things they might
have known
and boys marched past with stares that
shamed you
oh! how dare you try and guess their fear
how dare you
then and
now it’s
April, May or June
and she in starchy apron
standing close upon the lawn she
could not have mown alone
(not all this time)
with smiles that do not come from years
of missing
you
(where is that boy?)
you steal the neighbors’ violets and
lilacs
she used
to love them
used to
you tossing them in the hedges
as you walk away
because you can’t
you just can’t
and
so you
stay away
later you will
send along the souvenirs of
one who might have been
but just can’t any longer
