In a letter to his wife, a Japanese poet said

I will be back, and, I will cross channels

and oceans, and islands, and rushing rivers.

And for the rest of their years, his flannel

shirt that she made her own, caught her tears

as they might in a lover’s hold.

What are our days, she asked,

or distances, or years,

if not one heartbeat measured out

in country miles and tears

between two coupled souls? As once

in Ocracoke, barrier island, barrier

to all that does not hold against cruel winds

and so, not love, which holds and takes

its fortitude from simpler things: the open hand

that follows cruel words; the kiss that aches

to cool, like a shore bird, in wading

water; the gestures of a land within a land.

A dress that I saw in a shop in Ocracoke

and I dreamed, as we ferried away, as a small girl

dreams, of sea winds catching its hem in a gust

of sea spray above my knees. And you wanted

to please me, because, I would come to see,

that is what lovers do. Let’s go back, you said.

And I noticed the difference in miles for me

and you: what for me was a glitch in our plans

and a girlish want, was for you an open hand,

a summer dress on a wooden hanger, ocean and

sand that you would cross – again and again. No miles

from lover’s want to lover’s gift, one sky from isle to isle.