all day I’ve watched two white moths
trail and braid each other in flight
over the pond and grassy run-up 
to the tree line 

Dear you know who you are:

You must be so relieved
to have, at last, the weight

of my affection off you.

 

She doesn’t think so much about the boats
Drifting back at sunset from the fields
Of fish—rubber boots and sunnyslickers
Against the spray and mist of the expiring day.
The water antipellucid, murky and cold,
The revenue of the nets now aboard.

I read somewhere that every love
has its own government. Or was it
that every love has
the government it deserves?

You’re loose,
sometimes good
and lonely almost

Sometimes when you’re not thinking
what you think most common
goes beyond everything you’ve ever known,

Sometimes you called on those
you’d never know
to come with you in place

The gift of clams is here, waiting
in the large bowl on the cutting table.
We are waiting: the clams