On the Kulshan or How To Love an Ugly Boat

He stands on the spot she had been thinking of all day –
inches from the rail, just where it meets
the open area for the ramp, where waves come in
tall, and crash down, soaking anyone there, but there
he stands, years-ago thoughts gathering
in the deep wrinkle-patterns, filling the valleys of
his face the way water flows through cracks in hard earth,
or the way the color of rain-air fills
the hollows in lungs on a Sunday morning.

Wind and high seas whip down the Sound, and he is firm,
as his eyes search the shoreline for that
something once held but long since washed away.
His shoes are soaked, but he is steady, solid and unyielding,
as he watches, until the moment he sees a
memory and breath leaves him just as water lifts
the boat again and his head falls back, eyes closed, the air
he seeks taking him to where he lives,
and she sees a moment he once lived as she had

on her first ferry ride, rough seas tossing this very deck, its
long flat surface pushed high and low as
she teetered, flailing and backing away, trying to
find anything to hang onto, until the free and familiar voice
calls her name and she turns back to see
him, young and as steady as this old man while
the water soaks him, he laughs away the fear, anchoring her
in the thought of her legs awash in
sea-foam and the beauty and power of the deep
water beneath them, and how it welcomes us all home.