Buzzards Bay, August 2010
by Aidan Carr
a scarlet kayak breaks the diorama— some goddess’ favorite spool
releasing wave
after wave
of no color.
past the boundary are the cloud-shielded depths
under june’s colonies of the black needle rush,
where the shy tautog, the bass and
even summer flounder plot the grid where
furrows are delineated at the hands of sailboats. dictate
all of this to me,
before i forget one detail, you water archive.
i must protect my eyes, from the shadows against the sand. So
each ship in these Azure cauldrons can
speak to me, even
from the window of the great kite over Logan. a Whisper
is something best understood in silence;
in the same color as
its a memory.
its a rule
i’ve learned
during my writing process. The secrets,
foreign and always hushing our breath, speak
to the absence we create from the thrills of
fresh air— i’m swimming as if my
open lungs are enough to render me fluent.
i breathe today. inhabiting commotion,
to hear voices and to remind myself
that everybody has
beautiful, ancient
stories like this one. i am
using the same words again and again
to say thank you for this being
delicate— instead of
just some
place from the past. now i will be mourning
the
closing of a coffee shop
3,000 miles away.