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.
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