Pirate's Cove

There's a trail that is more of a

collapsed staircase: a cavernous

fold in the hill’s hip-side

 that you can take if your knees are

fine.

and even if they are not, the desire to

show a boy your adventurous side could be enough

to catapult you down crevice and

slide your dog across slippery stream

to coax both of the animals of you

across landscapes where

there really is no good way

When you reach the sand,

the boy you're doing this for, or with (tall and coffee skinned)

finds a rock to sit on and goes quiet

makes you feel guilty for

wanting to talk in this serene place

you sit on your own trying not to

stare at him, having to remind yourself,

the sea is what you've come to see

Your dog digs a little white patch in the sand

but so littered in rocks is the shrinking shore,

that he huffs and scruffs and looks at you like

no like

why

the boy is still fixed at the horizon

His brown eyes like hands, holding onto something out there

a railing of beauty

you are everything that could loosen

the sweat, the wind, the woman-ness of you

you feel something touch your side.

But when you check it is only your own hip-fat

touching your rib fat--a new place, a new feeling.

the red-black line of shadow between parts of you

looks like a wound

Before you head back, the boy crouches down

next to your dog, who has found finally someplace to lay

His bright white fur against the black sand, simply beautiful

You move your hands to meet his

on the animal between you and

for the moment, your hands together are

bodies walking a white sand

For the next two mornings, you wake up

strapped to the mattress

and scrape from the bowl of memory

every last morsel,

as if you are not your own feeder

as if you are not

your own

A blue heron flies up to your

window to say something about aloneness

how it is better than this seeking, this following, this show

but you are only thinking of what it will be like

when he kisses you, if he ever does.

It is hard to imagine but you try

at the end of every scenario you conjure

your face and his face are like

the wrong ends of two magnets

slipping away, slipping away