Arrival

Julie Agoos

As if we had just woken later than usual,
finding only the dim light of the afternoon
and of the station lights wastefully burning
on the street that could be any other
that leads us to a small bed and breakfast
facing the water, like an old arena
outlined by green benches: a stillness, for a while
staring at the brown edges of lampposts supported
by concrete blocks in the water, catching a scent
of something we remember but cannot name.

I say we will go looking for it later
in accents that have not improved with time,
and sit trying to locate the image that brought us here
—whose past it was we wanted to enter—
when you say: anyhow, it's beautiful enough.
And I look at the boats tethered to their gold
patches of sea, and at the gold embellishment
of names along the sterns and starboard bows,
and realize that half the world is this familiar.
Then in the level water stretching between the boats,
vaguely distorting our arrival, how many
serene depths there would be; and my desire
to stay here and claim is as a homecoming
by this time has become so elaborate,
though it started from nothing, that I do not answer.

From Above the Land (1987)