Field Guide
You loved me.
I rolled my sleeves down that year-
fall, your fingerprints
were like the blackberries in our yard;
spring, you threw my keys into the gully.
I wore my hair long to hide my neck,
but friends knew.
When I missed a coffee date,
they sent a sheriff in the rain
to look for me in puddled ditches.
You loved me.
I owe you a debt for the daughter
who has your grey eyes
and doesn’t know it.
I think of you when the geese leave the lake.
They soar—
I remember birds in cages,
and things that do not fly,
but you loved me.
Now, in summer,
I dive from the dock,
my arms and legs like frost,
my hair beneath a cap;
the laughter of friends on the sand
does not pause.
I could almost give you
a hushed kiss
for every lesson you taught me,
but the kisses would line up like women
waiting in court
for restraining orders.
You loved me.
This is as near a love song
as I will write to you.
At night my husband pillows
his head against my breast.
If there is an indentation
where your ghost lies,
he rolls his broad freckled back
against the sheets,
and you are no longer there.
The bruised map you drew
led me to straight to him.
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