When they leave, the lake
seems to sharpen, grow clearer,
as if we'd turned the lens
on your father's binoculars,
the hills step closer,
water flashes in our faces
as we lie back, stare sleepily
at loons, the other shore.
"Alone at last," you say,
tipping your hat over your eyes,
but together at last
is how it feels,
gathered into the bay
with the rocks and the pines
and the crows crak-crakking
louder it seems
than they did minutes before
as we called "Goodbye"
to weekend friends.
Now we doze on the beach
absorbed under a comforter
of hazy clouds,
lulled by the whoosh and buzz
of fly and wind.
Through half-closed lids
you seem to swing closer
then recede into the burn
of sun from sand
forward and back
forward and back
with the loo-loo-loo of waves
as I surge, retreat,
fall into dream,
matching your dance
with my own sleepy drift
alone together at last and
all one
Susan McMaster is an Ottawa poet.