“Remember how close we sat...”

By Jane miller

   Remember how close we sat in Sifnos having dinner by the water? You said in your country once you put the table in the water. You began the meal, and then what a great idea to move it over a little, it would cool you, it was that calm. You rolled your pants to the knee and poured drinks all around, the fishbones back to the sea. Lizards climb the stone outside the kitchen by the sea. Weeds and flowers grow out of the stone; the relatives spill out of the kitchen. The daughter is well-educated or about to be. She serves us with the happy face of one who is leaving. You lifted your skirt walking home in the dark over the pebbles to sit. One night we saw the only other lovers – they were both fair, she blond and he gray – and their eyes moved only to each other and the sea, these two destinations. Now the sea once in a while slips a wave up to their feet, because a boat passes or for no reason, now the yellow moon divides the sea into fields.