In a silent room surrounded by sand I sleep.
Sometimes the phantoms of the dead
on the far shore wrestle for hours
with the great questions he and I—
and everyone we had ever forgotten—
abandoned when we fell out of love,
when the long nights appropriated us.
Or maybe they aren’t phantoms.
It’s winter on that island, the frozen
snow is bricked high for miles,
like a seawall to discourage visitors:
in spring it will thaw, the beach will flood,
and the actors masquerading as ghosts will drown.
To marry means to halve one’s rights & double one’s duty.
Or as a friend observed at his ex-wife’s wedding:
divorces open out, marriages close in.
Really both are imaginary lines over which
two briefly parallel lines intersect,
creating a rectangle—a cell.
Everyone I know is drowning trying to escape some island.
Other times, the dead on their milky shore
rock in unison in marble chairs
and agree that the great questions
were so many distractions they created
like a long white wall to keep themselves
from falling too deeply in love.
Last night in the dry stillness I dreamt
of that island again: the snow fell fast
and under the ice the drowned men recited
their lines, scripted subtly by my former husband.
It’s true, you see, they aren’t phantoms.
But who can say how I came to this desert,
all my lights burning at noon, and the phone—
off the hook for days—ringing again.
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