The Maine Coast
Last year,
I planned Thanksgiving snug in tree-clasp,
turkey among acorn trimmings,
oysters to stun the stuffing with their briny sap,
sweet tradition of rutabaga bitter in its bite.
November trees
stretched, full-leaved, over asphalt lanes,
ocean’s roar and spume
barely hidden by underbrush and homes
or the small chaos of living.
I expected tobacco’s blue haze,
football game bluster and bravo smoking the air,
both of us pushing bread
crumbs into the bird’s clean hollow.
I expected the pumpkin pie to last and last.
I hadn’t counted on the missing friend,
a small lost cat at the door, your sorry-stammer
that this wasn’t love, not the way
you meant it to feel, that in this penetrating warmth
lay the boredom of content.
This year I go nowhere.
I watch branches unwrap outside my windows
and imagine coastal wind, fingers of fog,
the kitten weaving between my legs
as I set the table.
First Published in Pearl
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