Long Boat

—for Mary

Long boat, obsidian the cargo,
Twenty oars pulling through the sea –
This, my sweet, is how we ply
The distances in our intimacy.
Those star-haunted sailors, quarriers of glass
Moving over the open waters
From Cyprus, say, to Melos
So many thousands of years past –
We’re not so different from them
Though we’re parted.

And though, on the phone, you are as close to my ear
As the thickness of my hand,
As the wind in a sail, —
And though you bite into your Jersey Mac
And chew so loud I feel you’re even nearer,
You’re as far from me as the moon is far,
And I’m paddling like twenty men who would
Bridge the gap, no big deal if we’re talking star-
                                                          distance,
But an immensity for a mere sailor whose thoughts
Travel at the speed of light
But whose body can’t.