On the Port Townsend ferry,
I watched seagulls rise, then dip along the horizon.
Two men played chess as a girl twirled
in a blue polka dot dress; a woman in a sunhat
skimmed a book with pages so thin
I thought I could see right through them,
could see each letter—
buoyant and swollen in the saltwater.
Saw spelled backwards is was;
read spelled backwards is dear.
My dear—what I had never dared
to call my lover who I kissed years ago
in the park when no one was looking.
Fumbling through her blouse,
I touched the fault line
just north of a north,
past the seesaw and monkey bars,
where desire resides.
Chair, in French, means flesh.
Fear inverted is nonsense.
Her skin was wet with peaches and shadows
of upturned leaves as small as boats.
How seamlessly those boats moved over us,
casting shadows in spots most tender:
between joint, muscle, and bone.
Reprise: again. Une reprise: a mend.
Again and again, our hands
searched out loss and gave it sails,
then watched
it drift from view.
Shannon K. Winston’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Inflectionist Review, Pretty Owl Poetry, A-Minor, Crab Orchard Review, and Zone 3, among others. Her first poetry collection, Threads Give Way (Cold Press), was published in 2010. She earned her MFA at Warren Wilson College and her PhD in Comparative Literature from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She teaches in Princeton University’s writing program.