as we sat down that
late evening with
chips in giant bowls,
beer in tall pitchers,
with Duncan, your lover,
so wild-eyed, smiling
unprivately, with mind-lust
quicksilver and generous,
like no other man ever.
You said, “I want more.”
The restaurant had
provided one of
those outdoor warmers,
on a wobbly stand,
superheating the
tops of our heads and
leaving the rest of
our bodies freezing.
And Eliza, your
daughter, interstellar
phenomenon sitting
her pulsing self between
you and him, described
like no daughter ever
her plan of venturing
upstream from the deep
river bend where she knew
her mother and father
would remain lifeguarding
like no other guardians ever.
We four leaned in under
our table umbrella
because rain began so
suddenly that cold drops
hit our shoulders, the
backs of our chairs, hissed
on the tin shades of
the outdoor dining
lamps radiating.
And the ice-stabbing and
head-heating and the
familying brought
rib-stretching laughing
from deep within me,
like no other laughter
I had known ever.
And I felt certain I
sat at the splendid-most
altar of enoughness.
And you read my mind.
You read the not-word
in my mind that named
our friend-holiness.
And you did want more.
You wanted more and more.
There is so much in my life
I misremember, Sheila,
but I remember this
like no rememberer ever:
you weren’t asking for yourself.
Kevin McIlvoy lives in Asheville, North Carolina. These poems are from a work in progress, The River Scratch. Other poems from it appear in Olney, Hearth & Coffin, Consequence, The Georgia Review, Willow Springs, Humana Obscura, and River Heron Review.
JMWW 