Two Poems

The Catch

My husband dreams of fish
making their way upstream.

I watch his eyes moving
under closed lids

as they scan the shallows,
follow the current

where wordless hungers
return to their source.

Moonlight ripples the sheets
and a shadow passes.

For thousands of nights,
I've studied his sleep,

a woman on the shore,
waiting to catch sight

of movement, a sudden
flash of iridescence,

a glimpse of silver fin,
the bright arc of its flight.

 

Of An Evening

The backyard's an overturned cup, full
of insect hum, earth's murmur and spin.

Leaves stir and submit, a woman's
sigh at day's end, a leavening.

My mother disapproved of wishing
for more or wishing time away.

If she had regrets, she kept them
harbored, hushed, and refrained

from counting heavenly bodies
or counting on them. But tonight,

I see more stars than ever, no matter
how many they tell me have died.

I lean toward them, into darkness, feet
barely anchored on the tilting planet.

My mother sighed to let the world
move through her, an easing,

an opening, in which some small animal
might startle, then disappear into the trees.