[When You Asked, I Thought At First]

When you asked, I thought at first

of the shore house as some kind of reliquary,

our days there like small bones,

as though time could have a body.

As though the pleasure of the daily

habits we invented had made that week

a shelter, or something sacred.

Then I recalled a boat I'd watched inch

the blue horizon between one rose stem

and another at the edge of the flagstone patio.

The giant trawler, a harmonious

imprecision, reduced to inconsequence

by a framing perspective. A fact

explicit and exegetical. A corrective

to metaphor, and just as reliable.

Copyright © 2005 Boyer Rickel All rights reserved
from West Branch
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission