Open Spaces

Now he is driving West Texas,

the dusty vastness not that different

from the oceans he used to watch

on the deck of a ship. For years,

that was his view and mine

in my imagining. The water

was like what I knew of him,

by which I mean a reflecting surface,

too dark to dive into. Outside

of Marfa, he sleeps in a room

covered with dead moths,

their gray shadows everywhere

he touches, their wings

powdering his hands with failure

to take flight. He brings them

home in his suitcase, dead insects

in the creases of his clothes,

the way he used to bring me

a tiny jar of paprika, a tin of matcha,

a vial of crushed roses, souvenirs

to remember where he’d been.

Our open spaces are large enough

to hold all kinds of absence.

We trade one distance for another.

The wind keeps pushing across

whatever place he occupies—it leaves

small furrows on the land and sea.