Anne carved me her love in a scrimshaw 
necklace etched with diaper pins as she 
rode the Bart thoroughfare from Fremont 
to San Francisco; her pent-up passions 
found expression through words she copied
from conversational Greek textbooks
transformed into thin lines she’d accentuate
with permanent ink highlighters…and spittle…
fanning her unexceptional talent with attitude:
defiant, obstinate, reticent, yet modest.

I’d drape that scrimshaw necklace over ties
when I taught at the university trying to recollect 
her ungainly, unhinged laughter seldom tempered 
by moxie, self-discipline or courteous control;
I wore that talisman outside t-shirts, formal wear,
even a tux on my wedding day—with another woman—
remembering undying promises Anne and I 
had made when college clarity convinced us the past 
would link our futures forever in amorous whispers, 
secrets between sheets, and whalebone vows.
                        

Bright orbs freckle the horizon
twinkling, 
twinkling, 
twinkling, 
stray logs float along the canal,
twirl like gigantic swizzle sticks
mixing swirling eddy cocktails
garnished with flotsam jetsam 
washed ashore night and day
before embarking as watery wayfarers—
like bald wooden captains stripped of bark,
they navigate rip-tides as defiant as
fishing bobbers, ever buoyant—resilient—
whether basking under sunrays or starlight
again, 
again, 
again.
thrust upon sandbars.