By Margaret Mackinnon
for Sara
Think of the squat yellow house,
as cheerful and incongruous
as a tropical bird,
the extravagant pink crepe myrtle
in full bloom. Think of
Springer’s Point, this morning’s
early trail, the twisting live oak
above Pamlico Sound.
The windy yaupon, wild olive,
the black needlegrass.
Think of Chester on the back porch
with his stories of cake and fig preserves,
the milky white fig sap,
those lemon figs,
the wasps that loved that tree
to death—
Think of the sugar fig,
small and sweet and round.
On the last night you lived,
you said, I’m so lucky,
I’m so lucky—
Think, now, of the sea,
which loves what is lost.
Think of the ocean, green
and unweary,
its undulant gray and silver-gray,
the long lift and fall
that is always around us,
the bright silver-green.
Think of all you saw:
the swift white arc
of a black-tipped gull.
Margaret Mackinnon is the author of “The Invented Child,” winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award and the 2014 Literary Award in Poetry from the Library of Virginia.
Beautiful ❤️
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