The sea happens to me today

not because I’m the woman in the bakers
brusque turned rude
or the peaches              still hard in the bowl

Sunlight saunters in long, thin wires through the fallow field
of my bedroom. You approach, a migrating heron
in a runny yolk collar and suntanned shorts, a white-light emissary
of hope. . .

I’m waiting for news I don’t want to talk about
and scrolling through old photos to escape.
After some swipes, I see you walking away.

The night before we left we smoked opium
for the first time and didn’t sleep.

Perhaps some small creature fallen
from where it should be. I am unsure
whether I saw it move.

We cannot update you yet, other than to say we are caught
in a doldrums between stations and that your father can wait
as he has been waiting these past two years . . .

A woodpigeon calls
his five-note matins.

Petals ratchet wide
as the sun rises.

Distance from the ground has become
a way of reminding myself,
how the earth turns her swaying tilt

Inside May’s warm beauty
I think of God and of the Virgin Mary.
I’ve always loved Mary.