The Pacific

I am reading Thomas Centolella         a thin book of quiet         size only slightly larger than my palms         that hold in the same way         many things unsaid between bridges of things mundane         Yesterday         I had new eyeglasses to see more clearly and I bought                 her a ring         feeling not for the first time         Certainty         Arriving home         the little dog sick and a next-day appointment with the vet I hope we will not need         It rained heavily last night         sun shining briefly this morning         sweet         for the local roses someone from the office gave         for the garden I will have more time         next week while everyone else in this Christmas country         I hope to cross a sea         an ocean         with her to an island of migrating flocks         In the meantime there is an ocean's love         a happenstance at the exact same time Thomas Centolella writes The Pacific.



The Pacific



A thought has been rising and falling
in the grayness of the season, 
like a freighter in heavy fog,
appearing and disappearing:
How is it we never tire of dreaming
we can be autonomous as the sea?
Or be among the swimmers
holding their own against the undertow?
And the body surfers encourage us,
the way they submit to the powerful flux
and are buoyant, transported
by what could just as easily destroy them.

I keep thinking of that woman in Godard's
Two Or Three Things I Know About Her.
Real love, she said, leaves us changed afterwards.
What happens after that, she didn't say.
I remember you were grateful, as so many are
given the chance to move on to something better.
Fog lifting, the tide comes voluptuous as a great love,
and tastes bitter, like what comes after.
Stunning turbulence.  Like a brilliant smile
that keeps edging closer, and from which
I edge away.