To Gwen Hawkins: An Apology

A petal breaks in Washington

Square I am flat-backed,

maple-like

I see your hair and bared one arm

across the sea.

It is spring where we both are

it’s northern and hot

I write to you Amazing Grace.

Like the Bradford Pear

your white blooms drop and light—

you bow like me, supplicant to the gendered grass

we bare our feet upon

(Beside, and not above.

Temporal, not ubiquitous.)

I’ve painted you many ways

this year, ecstatic like

wine and an ode.

In Philadelphia I am

the lioness by the fountain

I am the maid in the yard I am

a bud across the pond,

poised to drop in the tide

and wash where? To your coast northern

and craggy, gray and tempting Seppuku?

I’ve split and died in the strait,

and garbled fort-da travels through

my night terrors.

Marco

and kissing underwater

Marco

the ocean sound of Scotland,

afternoons on the weathered rocks

and laying my body in the wet reeds,

or here

on a bough, the rings that name

an age, and how many years three thousand miles are.

This same day in George Square

ah Gwen, long the ivy twined

among the central tree, and I

could throw an arm and land

upon your face

(and even then not see you!)

These days I cycle my religion

embrace the drum and sing

our May Day song O

far from Calton Hill.

The drunkards on Rose Street

trip up the groutless cobbles,

sun white

on the terraced

homes of Rittenhouse,

bodies complying but

Yankee noises situating me

here. Abstraction of sound.

I promise I’ll get it right

I’ll say it plainly, disinter a second—

you tore your muslin skirt.

Dropped a paddle in the North Sea.

Smirked.

Conclude the park crawl, situate the postage,

seal and stack in mind marked to be sent,

double-take the language of my address.