Upon Learning of His Wife's Cancer

"I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more." --Edna St. Vincent Millay After that, his eyes, like blown-glass floats, caught the summer print of her cotton dress nestled in saffron, colandered through curtains. Salmon-eyed from sun porches, she planted asters and seaweed, charading days till thunder cracked the cinnabar sun and she found you, half-curled-- the long, raw metal conch at your ear, as if a sleeping child, listening for the silk of the sea.