There are many ways to return.
Once in winter you descended
through scudding clouds
to touch down
on the wet tarmac of Cole Farm,
yellow cab waiting.
Once you swam the breadth
of the Merrimack from Badgers Cove
to this near shore,
dripping onto black sand.
On the striped blanket
you left your dark shadow,
the wet imprint fading
in the sun.
And there are still
other ways we have not yet taken.
I have maps of them all,
let me show you.
Here is the Ghost House
at the trail’s elbow,
and there, a loose strand
of her hair, or your hip
pressed into the bed,
your body the sea
sinking in to the shore.
Turn right, now, at Basin Street,
and park by the marsh,
amid the sucking mud and flies
and Gerald’s house low
against the sky.
We always told you
we’d come back.
We are still, even now
learning how.
Colleen Keefe, 2021