Monterosso

for Louise

You would have hated this—

the rented chairs, the multilingual

lifeguard stand, the stones

where sand should be.

You would have longed for home,

Green Hill Beach, Rhode Island,

where the water’s just as cold

but at least you know the tongue.

Louise, you would have hated

Monterosso—how vertical it is,

how the farmers net the olive

groves to keep the fruit from bouncing

off the terraced cliffs and landing in

the sea.  Nets again over the grapes,

and draped along the handrails

where the stairs—so steep they

could be ladders—climb the rocks

where you would want dunes.

How spare the space to set your foot

on something solid.

I lay back into the Ligurian

in Monterosso and watched the train

disappear into the mountain toward

Vernazza.  It passed behind the tiny pastel

houses propped impossibly against the rock.

I closed my eyes and thought of you, dead

a year.  How my father still refused

to spread your ashes.  He could

barely get through the eulogy

which I, in misguided grace,

had offered to finish.  I choked

on The Prayers of the People,

on your name in my mouth, on

“Lord, hear our prayer.”  What words

would make my father set you floating

now, until you dissolved into the ocean

or drifted on the wind to somewhere

warmer, where the sand is soft and

laughter dances on the water

like singing from a distant island?

You would have been amused

by the German tourists changing

on the beach.  If God wanted us naked

we would be born that way. 

I can hear you laughing.  You would

have liked the wine, poured cheap

and often.  You would have liked the way

the sun began its yellow slant

on the rowboats in the harbor,

and the bagnino balanced, standing,

pushing towards the narrow shore

with a single, elongated oar.

For My Husband, Before I Was Born

I like to think of how your father strapped you,

sitting, to the bow of his kayak, safely tucked

within the criss-crossed lines that ran

like laces to the cockpit.  I like to think

that you thought you were flying,

your toddler arms teed out as if to touch

the algae-covered breachway walls,

your father holding his paddle to his waist

and letting the tide take you and half the salt pond

to the sea.  How early you were taught to trust

the ocean, to love its pull and ease,

to let it carry you away and take you in.

Your father knew the risks—

boulders at the breakwater, the sudden

turn of weather into thunder and wind,

the possibility of capsize, or of washing

up on distant shores alone.  I wonder

how he brought you safely home

to the smell of chowder burning on the stove.

We never hear that story, just the part

about your mother sensing danger

in the quiet of the house, looking up

to see you cruising past the rented window,

little man laughing, tan and blond and sprinkled

with salt water.  How she hurried you inside,

held you to her, wrapped in a towel,

the wave of silence when she met your father’s eyes.