Allessandria
Polizzi
Moving
I.
The birds seemed louder somehow, as I felt
Catherine move next to me and moan;
I could almost hear their tongues clicking
in their thin throats, their claws grasping
dry branches. Her gray hair pressed against
her face, marked by imprints of the sheet
like she'd been slapped, she grabbed for me
like she used to, searching for the hardness
that is no longer there.
The hum of cars taking children to school,
voices, rose higher and higher,
and I knew something had changed.
II.
Everyone is moving she says as she scrubs at the ring
in the toilet. I walk behind her and watch her back,
her arms flex soft.
The curtains are open, and I see boxes drifting,
carried by our new neighbors, a young
couple. Catherine looks up, her eyes following
lamps and books, a box full of sheets
tossing and turning, rubbing against each other,
and I look too, watching, waiting.
She flushes, and the water spins away,
twirling in tiny waves. A bed floats by.
III.
Their dogs run around in circles, smelling and lifting their legs.
I inspect the chipped handle of my hatchet
and watch their moist black noses sniffing through holes in the fence,
questioning. She calls them,
her voice coming closer, punctuated by the slam of their door,
and I bend down to the brown eye watching me
through the cracks, the low growl barely audible.
Unlike Catherine, our new neighbor is short,
her legs strong and sturdy, like those of horses.
When she moves near me,
I can almost touch them,
almost feel the small rise of the mole near her knee,
the hair curling up from it,
can almost smell the youth coming from her,
almost taste it like salt in the corner of my mouth.
Breeching
I.
I look over the railing, the water streaking by,
and hear an old woman speak. Her hair is short, cups her face
like a gray swimming cap as if she plans to leap
into the water and look for the whales we are following
in their homeland, among the dancing seaweed. She talks
over the roar of the boat to her husband, makes plans
for the day, where they will eat, who they will call
from the hotel phone nailed to the desk. He nods, looking
at the horizon that surrounds us, the blues, dark and light,
touching their fingertips like old lovers.
I wonder how long they have planned like that, their voices
bouncing against each other; I wonder if I will ever have anything
so simple, bowed heads touching as one speaks and the other listens.
The old man's face changes, the creases in his forehead digging deeper,
and she follows his gaze as if she knows what he sees,
their mouths forming perfectly round Os that grow into smiles.
II.
I look at the smooth charcoal splattered backs arching up,
breaking open the sea, spraying, blowing us kisses. Their spines
follow the skin of water, caress the air and dive back down
with a flick of their tails to darkening streaks of sunlight.
We come to a stop, float above their dancing, watch another
come to the surface and peek up at us. The couple holds hands,
and I grab the cold railing now dripping with salt air, search
the shadows of waves yet to be, try to guess where the next
whale will raise the water with its back and touch
lighter blue above. Everyone around me is talking, calling out
at each appearance to someone they love, and I listen,
following their pointed fingers, their widening eyes.
Suddenly, there is a gasp, and we all turn to see a lone
whale jump into the air, bursting free from the water,
its fins held out to the side. Leaning, it falls back
to the sea, the water curving up and out, leaving
our boat to rock quietly alone.
"Watch," says the captain, "They always
breech twice." We answer with silence,
the girl hiding her cold hands in her mother's
pocket, the captain with his billowing windbreaker,
the cameraman moving his focus along the edges of blue,
the old couple with their mouths open,
and me, alone on a boat of strangers,
waiting for the second breeching, the second leap into air
whales only feel when they touch the surface,
wondering if in this breeching it will see us only as a flash of color,
losing its memory of us as it swims deeper into the darkness.