She would like to find herself in his poems. She tries to do this:
behind a birch in a lakeside sonnet; just beneath the waves; under
granite boulders.
He imagines himself,
the only onlooker, surrounded by a vast audience.
Backs turned to the view, they gaze at him with rapt
attention as he reads to them about it. So he
looks to the sea on this annual holiday, certain and glad that she,
at least, is watching
how he writes. He rearranges the collar of a striped
linen shirt self-consciously, poetic sweat beading
his upper lip. He straightens his back.
She closes her eyes
and imagines herself walking slowly and purposefully into
the cold water. The waves brush her like children’s small
clean fi ngers. She turns to look back at the shore
and he is no longer there. When she opens her eyes
he is looking at her, angrily.