For forty years I’ve traced the freckles
on your back, imagined constellations,
like the ones you conjure when stars
dazzle ocean darkness—Look, you say,
farmer with spilled milk pail, goat grazing
for pickles. I never connect the dots
shoulders to hips, no A to Z, our map swirling
from San Antonio to Sesimbra, from bull snakes
of Lake Jackson to the wind-rocked single bed
of the Gualala Hotel. Not our wedding aisle’s
ribboned path but scattered shells after high tide.
The luxury of lying here, following crumbs
of the crusty bread you bake, always more
than enough to find my way home.
–
Joanne Durham is lucky to live on the North Carolina coast, with the ocean as her backyard and muse. She is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the 2021 Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press, 2022) and On Shifting Shoals (Kelsay Books, 2023). Recent poems appear in Poetry South, One, Hole in the Head Review and many other journals and anthologies. https://www.joannedurham.com/
© 2023, Joanne Durham
Halfway Down the Stairs 