The Place In Between
I need to walk until I see villages beside me
and burnt engines on the hills rising over the sun.
I need to walk until see artillery shells
propped against the graves.
I need you to walk to the red-chipped arcade,
to the children who named the valley “Gentle”.
I need you to walk until they surround us,
wolves in the village square.
You too are named “Gentle”:
you help the strange of a person, the glyph.
You saw the marks in their eyes;
you saw the holes in their houses.
You reached out, but I restrained you;
they threw stones, but none struck.
You watched the rain fall like mortars,
forming a large impenetrable lake.
Then we walked, walking until we stopped at a city,
a city underneath the mountains, a frontier.
They had built water, fields, four monastaries, one at each corner,
and a grid that pushed back up against the cliffs.
*
She looked to sea— “See it?”
“See what?” “Look there.”
She took my head in hand,
Turned it. “Oh. Oh no—”
The sea was pulling a ship
Underwater, pulling its dim light
Underneath the pressure of
The Agean.
“What are those lights?”
“Sailboats,” she said.
“What are they doing?”
“Rescuing survivors.”
Lights revolved around the
Sinking ship, widening
And narrowing their arcs
To save the drowning.
“I think that’s the
Ship we took
From the mainland.”
“I think so too…” she said.
She looked at me,
Took my head in hand,
Kissed my lips, then
Slipped her hands into mine:
“Let’s go.”
“No— I want to see.”
“See what?”
“What happens.”
The lights shined brightly
On the sea, half threading
Through the dark, half
Heading back to island.
“They’ll be fine, let’s go.”
I shook my head—
“Let’s go.”
“No—”
We walked to the roof’s edge
To see the ship, the dock,
The rocks, the sea we had
Crossed, days before—
She put her finger
To her lips, “Look”—
A man sat
At the opposite edge.
A woman had wrapped her legs
Around his thighs.
She holds his hands
And thrusts her hips against him.
She sighs;
Then, slowly, like wind filling a white sail,
She arcs her back into a wide curve,
And leans over the edge—