Writing Our Lives

The story begins in a room
The house at the beach in winter
With the silent bed and table
Under the crystal eye of night.

I get out of bed, put on my
Corduroys and sweatshirt, don’t
Forget notebook and take the bicycle.

Down on the dunes I’m reading
Reading what I’ve written. How the rugs
In the room seemed dark. How the fireplace
Felt cold. How the night spoke the unsayable truth.

Pen moves left to right like anxious tomorrows
And delightful snow that passes in sleep.
A seagull shrieks for love and the sea.

We’re sitting on the dune; your hair mingles with the wind.
You’re reading the progress of your life, naked and vulnerable
The pages says “her soul filled the outline of her face
As she spoke of desire, dependence and jaded loneliness.”
The book says too much. We fell silent and turned the page.

“They sat beside each other on the dune watching the slow swells
of the sea. They both agreed it was ideal. It was ideal. They spoke outside
of themselves into the future and forever. Every meanwhile lingered.
The answer to every question was ‘yes.’”

I stopped writing just then to capture the perfect moment.
To live in the crevice of each letter like a hopeless cause.

And when
And when I stopped

And when I stopped writing
The seagull flew high
Into the unreflected sky
and died -
It was its own image, subtle and cruel.