On The Hotel Balcony
-sundown, Miami
They've come through the sliding door,
her first,
to share what they're carrying: wine
and local fruit. He brings a pencil out, a pad of paper
and sketches the oranges,
the open knife. He sketches her feet up over the sea
and watches while she turns
softer, touched by light which turns the leaves
watery orange-
It turns her face
so he sticks to particulars: the long sweep, underside
of thigh, the hollow
below the ankle, a sharp curve
of bone. Still, she's looking away at a beach house,
a yellow bicycle. It's the moment afterward
that's taken and set them adrift. Each
will go over the ocean
and it's no matter if the sketch
bears a certain resemblance,
it cannot attach her to the world
nor can he now
say her name quietly enough
to draw her back through interruption,
make her stay.
Kate Northrop
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