Gregory Djanikian

Do you remember the café
by the sea, the boats bobbing up
and down at their moorings
like so many assents?

And the men at the other tables
trying hard not to look at you
and failing, failing.

So long ago! So much dazzling water
and sunlight, and words between us.

Old love, what a silence now for years:
where is the news, the rumor of you,
the books in which your name is emblazoned?

And my younger life in yours:
to be able to hear a trace of me still
in the way you used to whisper.

Now I am thinking of the photograph
that could have been taken of us:
a young man smiling under the brim of a hat,
the young woman in a loose dress
unfurling about her body like a sail.

Then the one boat
beyond all the others,
moving laterally in the distance--
ours, you said, ours--gleaming,
cutting deep in the water.