What We Take With Us

So what if our ring fingers are naked now.
Or the house gutted like our hearts.
The soul can’t take a flake of gold
or velvet chairs, and the heart, well,
the heart has its sensation
of memory and flashbacks
in color. We don’t need the sea
to remember water
or a body to make love.

Watching Icarus Try

“How can they say
the marriage failed? […]
Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.”
Jack Gilbert

Side by side we watched light
spread across the harbor’s spine—silver
dappling the blue, making the windsurfer
with Parkinson’s a black cutout silhouette
as he bent over, squatting deeply, trying
to lift the huge, translucent wing.
Trying seemed to be the reason
he was there but we needed
more, needed him to fly,
and so we waited, watching
nervously. For seven years
we watched him try, watched his mind
and muscles train themselves
to think alike. In the moments when he lifted
his great wing, we could barely
breathe. Then we watched him fly
across the water like a God
before falling every time.

The last time I saw him,
when he carried that wing—a vast
sail on its side above his head—arms outstretched
and palms up across the sand, I knew
our marriage was the important thing.

Cape Ann Without Her

Heat swelling off asphalt
and metal brought me here.
Every window open wide, hot air beat
against my ears and face so loud I chose
the impossible company of my thoughts
over music
for three hours.
The air can only hold
so much sound.

Our years together on the shores
and waters of this seaport
were years of hiding our togetherness.
Reminding ourselves
and each other not to kiss.
Not to stare too long
without the clothing of words
to cover the nakedness
of each other’s gaze.
We endured the weight
of strangers staring if one of us forgot
for an instant, called the other
honey or love in public.

We walked in search of sea
glass so we could speak
as lovers, not just friends.
So we could describe each other’s eyes
in the afternoon light of a cloudless July day.
We walked so we could speak
of how it feels to pretend
you’re not married
when teenage couples stroll the beach, boys’ arms
around their girls’ naked
waists, hands caressing a low
back momentarily before settling on a hip.

Floating with kayaks tied together,
we angled the boats so that no one
on shore could see us holding hands.
After deciding what to inscribe
in our wedding bands—
love like the sea—
we dared to kiss a quick
kiss, a kiss
so innocent her mother
reading on the beach
couldn’t or wouldn’t comment
if she saw. When we spoke of the sex
we hungered for and wouldn’t have
during our vacation, we lowered
our voices even more, fearing our words
could carry as the boats drifted
closer to shore. Without
touching her, with only
my gaze, I followed the bold lines of her
sternum, neck and jaw
back to her mouth,
to her wide, pale lips.

Even now, we hide.
She will not tell
that I’m standing on Niles beach without her
or that we watched the last sun
spill saffron across the sky–
hand in hand–
only hours ago.

After we packed and taped her last box,
I walked her to her car
where we wept quietly in each other’s arms
in the late night’s stillness
and whispered I love you, I’m sorry
over and over
under the neighbors’ porch
even though they know,
and they know everything.
How loudly you came
when the children were away.
How often we argued and wept afterwards.
How hard and long we laughed.
The neighbors know things
our closest friends do not.
Still, we whispered.
My love. I’m sorry.

Entering

When every sound
of living is your undoing–the eraser
erasing, mirror
closing, door
meeting its jamb, ache
of floorboards, symphony of sheets
rustling against night
and skin, the lover’s heart that will not hush
its rush of blood, September cicada calling
its last call–and each unsheaths
your nerves one
by one, love, perhaps
you’ve been gifted
with a new sense
after so much silence,
like being born
into a bright world where sound enters
you from every pore like air, the sea
or God. Perhaps
this is a beginning.