Just Now We Are Sitting in Sunlight

All the late morning and one sound has been calling
to another sound.  My beloved tells me they are doves,
the gray doves, the plain doves we sometimes see on
the backyard wires—or sometimes see lying ripped open
like pillows by the street’s marauding cats.  My beloved
is more like a cat than a dove, but she is dove-like, she
is dove-like in the morning when she settles into her nest
of quilts and books, so many books, which sometimes
become heavy and lay themselves down on her breasts.
Oh, she is like a roe and a tower too, I am sure.  But just now
we are sitting in sunlight and the wild voices are crying
to one another.  Spring was late this year, if we can be said
to ever have a spring.  The ocean was colder than usual
which may have vast implications.  Now in fall the ocean
has become as smooth as a lake and we don’t go to it anymore.
We are always at the mercy of so many currents.  We are no longer
young.  I don’t believe that we regret much more than anyone else does.
Sometimes we drive the avenues and wander through bookstores
apart from one another, out of each other’s sight, and when
we meet we are like strangers, shy and stand-offish.  But just now
we are sitting behind the windows, and there is the one sound
calling to the sound that answers, and my beloved, among her books
and quilts, whose hair shines in the yeasty light, tells me they are doves.

Frank X. Gaspar