This poem’s first few lines
are a shot in full-on dark
seeking some target
and I still can’t tell
whose soft heart I’m aiming for
who is prey, who hunts.
I would like to know
how this warm air that you breathe
becomes mine and then yours
and so, joined, we move,
gulls diving in the salt wind
to skim the world’s edge.
I know you can’t say.
Not yet. This poem’s just begun
and I am patient.
Let’s try together.
Let’s gather the things we need.
Words like brine, foam, shell.
Mollusk, jetty, and
of course, we’ll need breeze, tide, and
dusk, sand, and longing.
All these things I hold
in this sun-warmed hand, waiting
to show you, walking
back up the grass dunes.
This beach glass held up to light
turning your palm green
is the beginning
of anything we might want,
an index of love.
The hatchback has baked
in this summer heat for hours.
We take the hot sand
with us. Windows opened wide
to a wetly rotting marsh.
Driving the causeway
there is more, and more.
So many things we still need,
and never enough.
We’re still finding words
we want to say for us, here,
before we are done.
Colleen Keefe, 2021