abode In a house looking down where the seagulls live by the ocean, a peeling railing around the veranda like a husband’s embrace On the sand, she spreads a blanket, an occurrence separated by the flow of years, once before her children were born, then as a mother, then, as herself In the evening chill walls breathe out sunlight to the clatter of dinner plate, one bowl and spoon, she listens to love songs in solitude, the last of the day ebbs through windows, an overlook where the seagulls go to sleep on the rocks and the ocean leaves and returns to the tide’s call © Jonathan Bohrn (2008)

 

 

Veranda, Lighthouse at Punta Sur in Cozumel, Mexico
Photograph © Susie Clevenger