JUDITH MIKESCH-MCKENZIE

On the Kulshan or How To Love an Ugly Boat

He stands on the spot she had been thinking of all day -
          inches from the rail, just where it meets
     the open area for the ramp, where waves come in
tall, and crash down, soaking anyone there, but there
          he stands, years-ago thoughts gathering
     in the deep wrinkle-patterns, filling the valleys of
his face the way water flows through cracks in hard earth,
          or the way the color of rain-air fills
     the hollows in lungs on a Sunday morning.

Wind and high seas whip down the Sound, and he is firm,
          as his eyes search the shoreline for that
     something once held but long since washed away.
His shoes are soaked, but he is steady, solid and unyielding,
          as he watches, until the moment he sees a
     memory and breath leaves him just as water lifts
the boat again and his head falls back, eyes closed, the air
          he seeks taking him to where he lives,
     and she sees a moment he once lived as she had

on her first ferry ride, rough seas tossing this very deck, its
          long flat surface pushed high and low as
     she teetered, flailing and backing away, trying to
find anything to hang onto, until the free and familiar voice
          calls her name and she turns back to see
     him, young and as steady as this old man while
the water soaks him, he laughs away the fear, anchoring her
          in the thought of her legs awash in
     sea-foam and the beauty and power of the deep
water beneath them, and how it welcomes us all home.

The Least We Know

Tangled together in the bedsheets,
  the least we know is that
outside the window is
  everywhere and everywhen
that pain has happened

held at bay, we like to think,  
  by the tracks of raindrops on
dusty glass, finding their way
  from the second story back to
ground, back to mud and muck

with the smell of wealth, of
  excess, of abundance, of
fertility and rot, of the scent
  of sprouts and seedlings and
mildew, a scent of yearning

and pining, so unlike the scent
  of fine uninfected dust,
like powder meant to soothe a
  child’s skin, like the settling
of air on treasured possessions

like the smell of clean long limbs
  at rest on fresh white sheets,
safe from the rain outside.