She Had To Teach Me To Make Chowder
Her handshake concerned me
from the start,
constricted my fingers
in sandpaper, and questioned
my man-ness.
She said I should know two things:
how to make chowder;
how sea-birds die. I said
I’ve watched a pelican die,
late at night,
on all the beaches. She never believed it.
Serpentine necks press the head back-ward
against thick down. The beak
faces the tide.
Tides comes out of and into our poetry;
like love.
But now
we’ve seen each others parts.
Words
mistaken in their meaning in that they are interpreted. And the love
will be forgotten
In the logistics of relating. So we aim our beaks to the tide,
with dignity,
to remember what it’s like to soar
over each other
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