Your brother’s boat leaves port today. 
Sails flutter in the salty breeze. 
The bay is calm.
 
Gulls and small waterbirds 
dip and dive around the boat. 
You head north — four hours, five days, one year.
 
Wisconsin, a grey house near a cornfield — me. 
Traffic hums in the distance. Cicadas whine. 
Red-winged blackbirds nest 
in the cattail swamp across the road.
 
I sit on the front stoop, 
a pail of sweet peas between my feet. 
A spade and soiled gardening gloves rest at my side. 
Dandelions spread through bluegrass and fescue.
 
I think of water — 
a bucket from the spigot 
rinsing dirt from my hands, 
rain coming from the west, you rolling with waves 
on a vast ocean of salt.
 
I think of the house in the dunes 
behind live oak and cedar, 
bush lupine and cream cups. 
You at an easel — 
white and red pulled from a brush, 
barefoot at water’s edge, 
salt crusting your jeans.
 
I am shelling peas, 
digging dandelions in Wisconsin.
 
You have salt in your hair, on your lips. 
I have a kettle of water — 
salted, 
boiled dry.