We wake to rain and the river,
peninsulas furred with tender green,
my head on your shoulder in the old way
and the summer house creaking like a boat.

Salt water dripped all night
into my veins, my bones
float in it, washed clean of flesh and blood
and eaten hollow by invisible mouths.

I slide one arm across your chest.
Will we two lie here again?
Sappho, dying, said
tears are unbecoming in a poet’s house

but I am smiling