GREAT BLUE HERON AT BURNETT BRIDGE

                You took me in the sun
    to your home-

             town, to the tidal

        a great blue
        heron stills
        its gait
        to wait
        in the shallows
        poised
        watching for
        shadows
        to wend
            the cold
                    currents

Once there was a door
that jammed
at the thought of itself.

You open the door
to reveal a gate you open
to another door—

The morning sun
slants into me,
a sharp fire in crisp air.

By night,
I was ashamed to cry
into your chest.

At sea, conifers climb roughhewn
rock of islands. Upstream, plovers

pipe the ploughheads of beaks
into mud for invertebrates. Can you

see trees walk? Can you see beneath
the mud, into the fishhold word

plover? Can you see a door’s
fleshhood swell against its jam?

    the gulf
        between
    stasis and
        patience
    gapes
        awaiting
    water’s
        return
    or the calendar
        days I count
    until
        it is humid
    between us
        until you
    jump into
        the water
    until I
        again can
    warm
        my ear on
    your neck

The in-tide will return,
you will splash, the drops
will kiss the earth
with diamonds.

At home I open all the doors
to let in sea-liquor, wind,
songs of the birds whose
names I have yet to learn.