She split for the archipelago
A table. A pen. A wire. And a crumpled sheet.
They sit with me, clean and blank,
Elegant in the cool summer air, paused.
The wicker splits like a scarecrow’s stuffing.
A table. A pen. A wire. And a crumpled sheet.
Down the river weaves and trickles a little paper boat
Tracing your handwriting, past my willowed shelter –
Which I pluck from the undulating currents
Like a fruit matured by the seasons of my patience.
A table. A pen. A wire. And a letter unfolded, prone,
Half suspended by the memory of its valleys and folds.

I worry too much. About distance.
About the absence of the arch of your brow,
Brimming with exquisite subtext.
About the parley of our live exchange
Ricocheting off these now too hallowed walls.
This scholar’s hand has gently turned over
These dislocated souvenirs, massaged them
Hopefully, nudged them (too often).
Now they are dulled and habituated,
Or else caricature and saturated,
Like a dull curtain for a show that will not rouse itself,
But still I have hope.

For with strange distance, our aspects
Have come into sweet relief
And our words into focus.
Without this correspondence, in solitude we would not
Have peeped into the sustained discourse of each other’s hearts,
Never murmured over the distillation of a phrase.
We might have blundered through the stew of friendship
Ignorant, till death,
Of those facets that render us both most unique,
And most together,
My darling,
And not composed in reverence such offerings of sincerity.

So now the day is melted over your horizon,
And the night subdues the lapping gales over the long grass,
I stand to close my frail door against the chill, and the dark veranda.

A table, and a pen, and a crumpled sheet,
Are all that we need, my dear. The wire is chatter.

Let us be like whales,
telegraphing across the ocean.