Requiem

Simmer down. The freezer is doing its good work. The ocean,

a degree higher than yesterday and in that one

your ankle bones can rest.

Estuaries in labor, the birds, white with angular wings

missile on a dime. Jets above the cirrus thrum their numbing.

Your own acute awareness of surface area, corralling sun.

Still as a sinker. Slack line to taut.

Sliding glass doors you feel in your gut.

past where you held them, left a scar, some cartography of then,

some, this is the way you turn and turn and keep your inner ear.

Some sanctum.

Aloe and hassocks. The light on lull. Ultimately,

you were my every thought.

Like pre-storm knees. The smolder of nine o’clock high June.

Her tendency towards leaving.