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.