Modest Distance

by Ann Spiers

Real men are both heart and body

The poet’s skin is too white, too Scandinavian.

He is covered with a flannel shirt and beard.

His trousers deflect indecent exposure.

Yet I wish I’d took off his clothes and then

pulled back to judge from a modest distance.

I’d ask him to move like the naked figures

in the first, grainy black-and-white films.

Walk, run, bend, squat. Maybe

raise his arms. That would be enough.

Then, without him, I’d trek his path:

climb to the top of the silo to scan

the grid made by aisles of wheat furrows.

I’d scramble through the Skagit’s briers

red with rosehips. I’d jump, clothed

into each Ish River. I’d hike to Shi Shi,

watch the gray whale come in close,

rub against the Arches’ rocks

to dislodge barnacles and sea lice.

In the tidal pools, I’d address the stunned

puffin underfoot, sizing me up, not ready

to flee. I’d gather mussels in a basket.

By the small fire, he and I’d be dressed

in wind letters, strips of the good paper,

haiku inked with his tilting calligraphy.

Smelling of iris, he’d recite his poems.

To have that is better than any untoward

moment I didn’t have, invited or not.

But he’s gone, and I walk the creek where

three little birds and yellow violets settle me

into the place he was always going unclothed.

In memory of Robert Sund

From Wild Cucumber: New and Selected Poems, Chimacum, Washington: Empty Bowl Press, 2025, pages 93–94.