This is where I'm from, Aberdeen.
The gray sea turns in its sleep, disturbing seagulls
from the green rock.
We watched the long collapse, the black drop and frothing
of the toppled wave.
Looked out on the dark that goes to Norway.
We lay all night in an open boat that rocked by the harbor wall,
listening to the tires creak at the stone quay,
trying to keep time till the night fishers came
in their ark, their lap of light.
The fat slap of waves, the water's sway, the water
mullioned with light.
The sifting rain, italic rain, the smirr
that drifted down for days.
The sleet.
Your hair full of hail as if soon there.
In the damp sheets we left each other sea gifts, watermarks,
long-lost now in all these years of the rip tides' swell
and trawl.
All night the feeding storm banked up
the streets and houses.
In the morning, the sky was yellow, the frost ringing.
The gray sea turns in its sleep disturbing seagulls
from the green rock.
That was a singularly inappropriate poem
to read in Tucson, Arizona.
[LAUGHTER]