28.

The turquoise water is not faked on a postcard.

The deliverance of the sea in the dying light

Is not something poets surmise. Winds here

Can be hot in January. No sirens rise

From the reefs: the boats, in rows,

Sit in the cove as if storms never were.

Love in the marrow, no matter how

Embarrassing a word can be, manifests

Itself in heat and light, bone and vessel

And rises and falls at first and last light.

The older I get, the less I know. You have

Made your way, son, up another cliff.

Those Greek and Phoenician traders knew many signs

For love: it is not just the heat of the blood.