Summer Evening on a Pocasset* Dock

Alone, Blue Nun bottle in hand,
I walk the wooden pier to the end,
tiny waves slapping the dock face.
I have seen how you

appear

to me, the moments, the shared
course, the last word said.

The last word heard
aches as it floats away

into the receiver
and into a last image: you
walk on the fringe of my heart
where only windswept dunes
and beach grass survive:
wintered, yellowed, rippled
by gusts. You live
through me, pass through
the thread of your voice: I still love
you.

*Seaside town on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.