Poetry Archives

—sundown, Miami

They’ve come through the sliding door,
her first,

to share what they’re carrying: wine
and local fruit. He brings a pencil out, a pad of paper
and sketches the oranges,

the open knife. He sketches her feet up over the sea

and watches while she turns
softer, touched by light which turns the leaves
watery orange—

It turns her face

so he sticks to particulars: the long sweep, underside
    of thigh, the hollow

below the ankle, a sharp curve
of bone. Still, she’s looking away at a beach house,

a yellow bicycle. It’s the moment afterward
that’s taken and set them adrift. Each

will go over the ocean

and it’s no matter if the sketch
bears a certain resemblance,

it cannot attach her to the world
nor can he now
say her name quietly enough

to draw her back through interruption,
make her stay.