"She takes it in her hands / like a good idea"

"She takes it in her hands

like a good idea, feeling

for texture, grain, the built-in

limits. It's only as an afterthought she asks

and do you think it's beautiful?"

-from Jorie Graham's 'To a Friend Going Blind'




The simple thing is to look into your hands
cupped over your eyes, nose, mouth, thumbs
crippling temerarious jaw; I was once a child too,
I remember this and I want you to return. I want
I want to remember the shadows the color made
in play across a cobble stone street, the sun 
in play across a street leading from the sea, the sun 
subjecting itself to the horizon. I want you to return.
Because it is abandoned it is beautiful, unsubjected to us upon our pondering steed
our pondering steed, the flat, brown water warm under your golden blanket
beside me beside me besiege me, crashes
into the nearly forgotten, industrial beachhead
there is no one behind me, the shore is cold.
breath slips past my lips, the wind is warm.