from What Comes of Waiting
Outer Banks, North Carolina.
Sunlight dazzles the lake like a field of bees
sipping its purling surface, wavelets fading
into the water lilies softening the shore.
Again you are not here.
A lacewing butterfly brushes purple loosestrife,
lingers, and I wonder
if you would have held my hand.
A fishing boat drones past,
smoke graying, choking the air
before dissolving to nothingness.
Rhododendron veils the house,
gathers me in shadowy patches of green,
and honeysuckle drifts the breeze.
Light flares, bounces across the water.
Tea cup forgotten on the bench,
I half-close my eyes: glowing specks morph
into golden strings of bees pulsing through time,
stitching us together.
