Knee Deep in the Water Somewhere

For Brittany

When your husband has gently 

requested a break from the constant stream 

of Jimmy Buffet, and you’ve finally

given away all the flamingo flotsam

your family thought you loved—you, 

whom they mistook for a beautiful, pink, 

strange bird, balanced on one foot 

in the front yard of their lives—

and your new, somehow oldest friend, 

on a scorching alpine desert trail 

that burns beloved dogs’ feet, assures you 

after hearing the longing in your voice 

for cool sand, your heartsick song for the sea, 

that, yes, yes, you must go, go to the beach—

well, then, you must go. Go where the body 

wants to go. You cannot lie to the body.

And while her heart breaks to send you out 

of this quiet, dark sky valley, with its cacti 

and sand dunes, its desperate children

in whom you believed, its blood-red string 

of sunset mountains, she knows this place 

is not your home, this crusted graveyard 

of a once inland sea. “Fly off, sweet friend,”

her heart thrills. “Though, you are no bird. 

No net ensnares you. You are a free

human being with an independent will.”

with thanks to Jane Eyre, our first book, for the final lines