Serendipity

Sharp trumpets call
in the distance;
the sound vaporous
from another place
and then the sun turns red,
hikers slow their step into the new haze;

A sparkle from afar
over the black ocean line,
grows bigger
at every wet step.
Evenings she would rip
into the water
and fight the waves
until the waves gave up
and I could figure her out now,
more distinct at every second.
She spoke to me with a composed tone
which would hide something else. There is always
another side to her voice, almost two lines
speaking the same verse. The silky stretch
of water behind mirrored perfectly our shadow.

She tells me about the night that’s young
but it’s been dark for a while and appears
almost yellow and the objects in her room
are too distinguishable yet so different
almost like new objects
in a new room
so she doesn’t feel home
and chokes silently
into the yellow darkness.

The sky drifts fast
now over building tops,
and morning steam rolls out
onto cold piers. Under the flicker
of street signs, two bodies lie calmly
behind thin drapes in the pale halo
of new time and their mass grows together
bigger at each breath – rises from the bedsheets,
wet and shivering,
stumbling to the sidewalk to light a cigarette.

The man at the counter
spins his glass and watches the light patterns
play on the wall
the shapes of her lips
spelling words he’d been
remembering for too long.