The Scent of the Sea

You were too real for a dream
sitting there across from me,
sheepish to be thought dead
by everyone all this while.

Our family was packing for a
day at the beach -- Dad carrying
out fishing poles, Molly
and Will bickering over who
would ride in the front seat,
Mom packing soft drinks
into a cooler of ice.

You and I sat here and talked
a long while, almost the
entire night. I wondered
where my good
sneakers were and how to
beach this slippery moment,
our talk too much like a fish
to write much about.

But a poem did come to mind,
“The Scent of the Sea,” making
me sad that my best work
now seems out of reach,
as inaccessible as you.

I said you’d have to check
out the memorial website
I’ve been tending all these months,
& let me know how much
was true. You only smiled.

Then I realized that we would
have to return to you all of your
stuff that we kept, your camera
& laptop & journals and slides.

I’d gotten used to writing
with you laptop’s heft in my lap.
Hard indeed it will be
to balance my ancient iMac here
but it’s the right thing to do,
giving it all back.

Time to go, a voice said,
and I got up to look for my sneakers
but woke up instead,
Violet scratching away at fleas
in the dark of our bedroom at 3 a.m.
with rain falling slow and steady
onto the eaves.

Downstairs Mamacita was
crying on the front stoop wet
and hungry and wanting in.
Our new kittens Silk and Hugo
in the guest bedroom and quiet,
hopefully just sleeping.

No sign of that poem
anywhere on your laptop,
hardly here either
though I write it anyway,
the chair across from me
empty now & rain
still falling outside,
dreaming, sending
in scents of the sea.