These Hazy Days

I Love Your Daughter

She stands alone in the moonlight. There's a river running by.
The pink folds of her dress turn above her ankles,
And the wind brings with it
The perfume of lemonbalm,
Honeyed by boats that passed
In the heavy afternoon—
Motors tilling the very banks white.
Now I see a shadow cover her.
It lays her in a rowboat, wood wreathed
With forget-me-nots. She has paper in her hair.
Things in the night shift.
I ache, and she drifts away.

Later in a dream, she's standing by the shore
And holding a conch shell to her ear.
Her body is slim now,
And she has tears in her eyes.
She's talking to herself,
Or maybe to me. I cannot tell.
Her hair whips across her face
And grains of salt sting my hands.
It's misting now, and I curse
Such unfulfilling rain.
I wish a storm would break.

I see her again, after a year.
She has a sailor's rope knotted around her ankles
And she cannot move. I try to look away.
A gull flies over the crashing waves.

I remember once
We stood in a garden together,
Each draped in white frocks,
She with a cloche hat
And I in blue ribbons.
Her hands were damp as they held mine.
She laughed quietly and apologized,
She said that she felt sick.
I embraced her tightly.
I told her that in the summer, she is just like a bird—
Light and tired but with such beautiful sharp eyes
Always rimmed the deepest red by smoke,
My beautiful one.
She kissed me.
I felt the braces on my legs shift
As if urging me to leave, but I did not.
I stayed with her and cried.

Shenandoah, I love your daughter,
Though she drifts farther.
Lay me in the gray river so that I may drown,
My forgiving Shenandoah.