Embarkation

One year, in the dark, a man thanked a woman for a night. Earlier, below a glowing orange window he had called her over to his side of the table to share, when he reached for the shred of carrot on her blouse, when his eyes shone with father grief, when he nodded to her awful confessions and, later, didn’t order tea, she felt the swell, the choice arise. She chose. An ancient song slipped their bodies over its head like skin, or ocean foam, a low crescendo. It was a song of saving, the body of a major third. Can two people save each other from the ravages of selfhood? Escape? Who carries whom in love’s concert? The song offered itself. A possible ship, an embarkation.

2014