By D. Nurkse
1
They're happy but don't know it.
They think they're bored and hate each other.
The other has forgotten the hammer and must pound
each triangular tent peg with a damp stone
that has a smooth underside but no flat plane,
and here the earth is granite or friable lichen.
The whoosh could be a horsefly, rain, or a powerboat.
They make love, and each gasps politely, each feels
that fat cloud is me, that drilled acorn was me,
but this person holding me is strange,
withholding as time itself.
2
At sunset the island lights up:
a firefly, a Coleman lamp, a bed of coals.
It's there they will learn to be travelers,
there where the flies know they are loud,
the hidden spring is aware of being cold.
They will get there by the teak rowboat,
worn almost to a thought, the gunwale splaying,
the strake shipping bilge and drowned lunar moths,
the old dog in the prow, watching through cataracts.
Beach with me on mica, in the tannin-dark inlet.
3
No, there is nothing here, a wisp of tarred rope,
a smashed teal egg, paths that lead to each other,
so you might walk to Quarry Cove and find only quartz.
But here the night makes its own darkness.
Like lake water, or the spine of a moss-green book,
our marriage closes over us.
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Adam left orders that no one was to wake him before afternoon, so we had a quiet morning -- I was fiddling with Windows 10 settings and trying to finish chores that got postponed while I was installing it. When Adam emerged from catching up on his sleep, we had lunch and went to Riley's Lock, where we saw several herons, turtles, ducks, frogs, dragonflies, butterflies, and people enjoying the river. Afterward we stopped at Homestead Farm to get peaches and blackberries, so we also went to visit the goats, chickens, and pigs:
Paul made ratatouille and corn from the farm for Lughnasadh, then Adam went out to visit friends and play games. Meanwhile Paul and I caught up on Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (which I am told is only the end of the first season but isn't that how the book ends?). Then we watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets long-distance with Cheryl, since she and I have decided it's time for a rewatch of the whole series -- this one is probably my least favorite story-wise, but it has Lucius Malfoy!
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