school of redfish

he tried to fill up the narrow gap between
her names, so she packed the letters in like machine-gun
fire, like the youth with their own teeth
intact, and a wall of fish she once recorded
in her diving log, "i swam through what i thought
at first was a shadow cast by a cloud."










she has hurried too quickly up stairs to rearrange
something or some things: a pile of papers, a hairstyle,
a clue, before his arrival, and found herself
dizzy and gasping incomplete and messy
sentences, "i swam through
first what i thought-
at, was a shadow cast by a-"

she has stamped him with more
than her approval, and shelved
their conversations behind rows of classics,
and in front of the opinions
of her father who until then had delivered
her lifetime of Truths.

but he could not be satin to her, not gentle
flannel sheets, nor a school of redfish
softening with age, when from the beginning
he was an army of enemies
catching her
in friendly fire. the steps are hard; she planned
to explain knowing herself, knowing
the light she photographs best in, the shoes
she wears to the clubs she dislikes,
the saddest words, the delivery
of a love in the past tense.