island vacation

It rained again today.
Sand’s less white than beige
and not quite fine
but still I felt the quivering
of the spaces between my fingers.
I walked as slowly as memory-
you and me once did
on that rainy beach more beautiful than this.

Now it’s too quiet.
Across this ocean pretending to be a lake
another island where you are not
unrolls across the horizon.
Glassy gray reflects bright blue.
Fellow travellers slice dark lines across the water
that, like them, disappear.
And what about these, my lines for you?

What about the curve of you
once right next to, once touching me?
Just another skein of rain from sky to sea?
What of our once-parallel trajectories,
the sharing of presents and histories
in effortless communion?
The same saltwater may lap at all beaches
but will our footsteps again follow the same shore?

Here’s another dispatch from where I am
to where you are. When you open this,
remember my lips against your forehead.
Remember the nearness of my smile
and the soft clarity of my voice beside your ear
and know that I think of you always.
Know that though my lines may sometimes bend
they always - will always - reach for you.