Rovinj
for the summer-lovers
Stay with me now.
Imagine a set of stairs, in a warm seaside town
in summer. They are stone steps made dark by a roof
shared between the buildings on either side.
The cold you perceive is the welcome relief
of that shade. No more, no less.
I am going to count backwards from eight.
Go down.
Eight. Look down to the water below you, and the blazing day.
It seems far, but it isn’t.
Know that your feet will land on solid ground when you step.
Seven. See the open boat, gently swaying on the surface. Maybe
your lover is there. She calls out to you. Her voice
is sweet and faint, like perfume on the wind.
Six. Linger on this moment. Remember mayflies.
Five. Halfway down, you can see below the arched stone overhead.
Beyond the boat, beyond the bay, beyond…
Four. Between you and the sun are only three steps. Choose.
Three. You hear the tiny swells lapping at the foot of the wall.
What does the water want? Nothing.
What does the wall want? Nothing.
Two. In another moment, you will wade in the Adriatic. You will reach out
for your lover’s hand, step into the boat, take the sun, take an oar.
One.
***
This poem is the fourth in my marathon of poems (plus 3.8) for Tupelo Press’s cool fundraising project 30/30. You can view the poems I and the other “runners” submit every day during the month of March, at
http://tupelopress.wordpress.com/3030-project/.
Please follow our work, and if you find it even the slightest bit entertaining, engaging, thought-provoking, or just generally worthy, donate to Tupelo Press, an independent literary publisher. Sponsor me by entering T. Thibodeaux Baar in the “in honor of” line on the donation form, which you can find here:
https://www.tupelopress.org/donate.php
(Scroll down; it’s a form!)
Thanks for stopping by! I am happy to hear from you via email or comments.
LouLou (the main monkey)
