Want

She wants a house full of cups and the ghosts of last century’s lesbians; I want a spotless apartment, a fast computer.  She wants a woodstove, three cords of ash, an axe; I want a clean gas flame.  She wants a row of jars: oats, coriander, thick green oil; I want nothing to store.  She wants pomanders, linens, baby quilts, scrapbooks.  She wants Wellesley reunions.  I want gleaming floorboards, the river’s reflection.  She wants shrimp and sweat and salt; she wants chocolate.  I want a raku bowl, steam rising from rice.  She wants goats, chickens, children.  Feeding and weeping.  I want wind from the river freshening cleared rooms. She wants birthdays, theaters, flags, peonies. I want words like lasers.  She wants a mother’s tenderness.  Touch ancient as the river. I want a woman’s wit swift as a fox. She’s in her city, meeting her deadline; I’m in my mill village out late with the dog, listening to the pinging wind bells, thinking of the twelve years of wanting, apart and together. We’ve kissed all weekend; we want to drive the hundred miles and try it again.