From the archives – Woman with View of Bridgeport — Robert Bolick

Woman with View of Bridgeport

Cold morning harbor. Its blackened pilings
abut themselves. The water’s bright as steel.

Rain clouds hang in the surface, but nothing’s
come of that. I turn to the brimming sink,

and it’s all the same. My robe falls. I step
outside myself again and, looking down,

see her arms, her breasts, bluing with the light
and hanging towels, her empty knuckled hands

cupped above the water as if to ask …
what? That something happen? Something fall?

The way a leaf might touch the water, loose
the boats in broken rings until the harbor

calms, and there in that magic glass, a chance
that all is changed? … Rain’s breaking up the Sound.

I gather back my hair. Our hands descend,
cup, uncup and touch beneath the water.

by Robert Bolick

from Autumn Sky Poetry Number 7, September 2007

Photo by Christine Klocek-Lim