9.22.2004

To Margaret

The sun picks out
a brown hair on my brown shirt
before I do,
resistant within the fibers.
If not for extraordinary length
and ringlet spring,
how could I have known it was yours?

Coated strands catalog essence,
outing the poisoned.
Your plump pods reveal
nothing so dramatic:
gray skies and evergreens,
salmon and Rainier cherries.
They say you've
never strayed, never
launched your grand tour,
Canada your farthest destination,
comfortable cities.

You can't hide, though, Margaret,
spinning, daring and shining in camouflage,
catching foreign suns.

And so on this grass
outside Southwark Cathedral,
I let this piece of you
release through my fingers,
a tendril feeler for this your journey.
It's a start—
now you've been to England.

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