Yarrow House

Flotsam on a High Tide

Whistle for the wind and call up a storm. Tom 
sails, tattered tempers. And land's a broken 
promise, a fading horizontal shadow.

After months of rolling shipboards, the ground still 
rocks. Red bougainvillea tangles around shacks, dogs 
carpet dusty roads. Kids trail behind like shadows. 

Paradise, after months of beatings by the waves,
the captain 's tongue, fist, wet clothes,
mold-fouled food, tired stories. Paradise,

or the shadow of paradise. Doesn't matter. 
Missed the packet boat, doesn't matter either. 
Solid ground, space, fresh food, fresh faces. 

Every shack full of kids, old women, no cheap rooms, 
no rooms at all. Doesn't matter, there's a bar. 
In the shadows an old chanteuse plays lazy chords, 

singing with a smoke-ruined, break your heart 
voice, that old devil moon just a shadow 
in your eyes. Maybe just making more of herself, 

or maybe she really did sing with the Duke. 
Her fingers were what he envied, easy 
on the keys, carelessly right on the chords .

Bought her a drink, told her he played, too, but 
had lost his nerve with the keyboard, maybe someday 
he'd go back, dragging his past like a shadow. 

“There' s a room out back.” Could have been a line 
in a song. I believe he came in like a shadow 
in your eyes, that old devil moon, she sang. 

“Play something for me.” Teasing, cajoled. Duets,
“Chopsticks,” hand shadows. Playing for centimes and
bottle caps. Evenly matched. His fingers. Her heart.

Love washed in, flotsam on a high tide, singing 
a new song. Long, slow, hot afternoons 
and nights, shadows on the screens, healing 

her heart, his music, but can't stay, can't 
leave, good-bye, good-bye. Some days love
is just flotsam; some days it's the boat back home.
					

Published in Borderlands, Court Street Press, Seattle: 1999
Re-printed in Medusa's Kitchen  2/18/2023

Onetime reproduction for non-resale purposes permitted by the author with the following credit line:  by Judith Yarrow