To Windward

How lovely a woman is, who

not finding something in her purse, pauses

puzzled, and tilts her head while the light

washes sideways. Something begins to tap

or to roll, and the restaurant heels.

Its sails fill on the other tack: she

makes a decision – the medicine

was left on the counter at home, perhaps,

or her daughter made off with the hairbrush –

it is this ordinary world that I do not want to leave

and it is not that she knows I saw her

or that the wave of light, breaking over me

will leave anything steady or true.

No. The click of the clasp as she closes

her purse, it ticks in my fingertips,

and I want to say, “Don't go.”