Yes

I said. The wind

lifted the word and blew

it through the birches into smaller yesses

that dispersed.

Hitched bicycle ride, my hands

on your waist, soles skimming the road

in the bends.

What we wore will be one of those tellings

that even a latent, erasing disease

never steals. In tune like a robin and robin, a doorbell

and creak of the stairs.

Say love is the ship coming in.

Say the grave eyes of the birch trees

watched us go. How long

had we stood on the pier? Gulls squalled.

We’d outgrown what we packed.