by Maura A. Conlon
Her body could wait no longer.
That’s how it happens, how a woman
Leaves for the hills or the sea, when the
One she loves is lured by quicksand,
The quest for heroics, needing to be
a lauded one.
But far below his crown ascendant shimmered
the sweetest red rose,
Perhaps you can smell it, the
one—in another lifetime—he might
Have draped along her smooth thigh
at night,
Peering into her eyes,
Trusting, finally, his own tidal song, how
She’d stood at the water’s edge, all along.
Waiting.
–September swirls, and the sunset sea bathes her body.
A seal alights, creates ripples, slithers into the
Ocean whose tides deepen to rose red.
She unloosens her skin’s threads,
Weaves a blessing upon the green linen land,
Which blesses her in return, no second thought,
no hesitation, at all.
This is love, she whispers: the wink of surrender,
The pulse of the wild current,
Holding her flesh in ecstasy, this sea season.