a desire path to the rocky shore,
where we strip in daylight,
and a silver of skywater paints
your back as we crawl in shallows
until we are floating timeless.
You are not yet my husband.
I am still deciding who to be,
each of us a mirage to the other,
I’d like to take a tour of doors: scrolling wrought iron
in Paris, heavy brass in Italy, carved oak in the Carolinas.
I’d like to touch doorknobs: green medallions,
brass faded like good jeans. Coolness and click
of a lock sliding open, fingers wrap handle,
The inch worm in the window sill, curling
In a bank of light. Snow-soaked porch steps,
Old pinewood floors. The neck, the back—
My body bends into another body. Firelight
Bends around his shoulders, a half-moon
Around stars, around the tops of trees.
Monet has already walked the garden twice.
Unsteady in his boat, he steps lightly toward
the bow, removes a satchel of peaches,
considers the blackness of leather boots
on brown wood and, in turn, deficiencies
in his handling of darker colors. In plein air
My real name is Lucinda.
Yesterday my name was speaks with no sound.
In dreams
my name is whispers in gloaming.
And though he knows my name
is Lago Bianco, my lover never says it.
He wades deep in my waters,
cautious of the undertow.
Empty the hope chest of its dishes.
Leave Christmas ornaments wrapped
in newspaper. Close the wedding album.
No, keep it in the corner of the crawl
space in the attic. Rubber-band the cards
that say how to love and for how long.
Waves barreled over each other, never reaching my toes.
Moonbathing I asked Venus to lie inside me,
pull my freckled skin, my damp hair into her
opalescent light, homestead in my bones
until I was hers.
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