Winter Harbor

Sea roses big as saucers
climb on a bench where the cemetery
overlooks the peninsula. We are
on that rocky finger near rows
of gravestones, sentinels
of the blue expanse and three islands
rising in a sea serpent's dive
toward Cadillac Mountain, us

alone with pink Yankee granite
and stunted cedars more tenacious
than barnacles. Crowds of giant spruce
ring every open space, even tidal pools
are shadowed in thick branches,
awash in moss, broken clamshells.

Buoys dance on wavelets. You put
your arm around me and pointed,
There's Europe baby, but I looked
behind us at rusted lobster traps
beyond the dock and thought. Oh!
The sun is splashing into the end
of the ocean.

Birdcalls echoed a foghorn,
wind blew on the white stones,
but we just sat on a rock.

I have that cedar cone I held
in my palm. It's so light,
but my fingertips remember
its rough stony leaves, my mouth
remembers the soft corner
of your mouth, how the curve
of your lip tasted salty.

When the moon awoke
I heard pine trees hiss. You
breathed your secret night whispers.
I tucked a quilt around you.