I see the prow of a boat
coming to the dock,
a silver fan to each side,
an unfolding like petals.
The feathered edge of a planet
moving across the sun.
The arrival of worlds.
A slowing and turning.
Watching the arrival of a train.
The cleaving of space
about a runway.
The opening of a door
to a friend or stranger.
I remember arrivals and partings
so clearly.
As if they were the larger part
of whatever happened.
The first and last part
of a journey,
book,
the entrance to love,
its exhaustion.
Returning to the boat,
a boy smelling the world,
its water,
musk,
seeing yellow oxalis
peeking from the crevices,
between the wooden timbers.
All the arousal of being alive,
or having been.
Where I was,
the afterimage of my senses,
never as huge as
coming to a dock,
laying on the prow,
a part of a boat coming home.