Seeing someone every day
is not seeing them,
not in the way of knowing
ourselves, marked by a milestone on a rocky trail
or a spring growing back with azaleas and pollen
and a canopy of elms.
Instead the confetti of moments we’ve traveled together
whirl into the patternless vortex of now
and we don’t know where we find ourselves.
Yet I thought of you the other day
and a painting you gave to me when we first loved.
It showed a man diving into the ocean toward mermaids
Who sat on an island, watching.
Next to the image were words from a Jerry Butler song,
“Isle of the Sirens,” about a ship’s crewman lured by temptation.
"The voices got louder
They sing beautiful things in my ear
I must go to that island of women
I must see these creatures I hear
Love is blind and desires have no fear."
The captain warns him that surrendering
to the siren song is a betrayal.
"Keep course, cried the Captain
Ignore them and let them be
Straight ahead, cried the Captain
Set on by and stay free
Remember laws of mutiny"
The man jumps anyway.
"'Old man, you know nothing
Of temptation
And desires are heaven to me.'
And off he leaped into the sea."
When you showed this to me, at first I thought I
was the man, giving in to temptation.
Only later did I understand that you were the man,
A black woman hearing a siren song
from a white man who lured her with desire and love.
We know the fate of those who leap at the sirens’ lure.
You broke the laws of mutiny.
Something in my daily cogito has kept this memory close,
reminds me that you leapt
And you’re still here.
Here we are now, in the time of COVID-19,
alone together, shut out of the world,
sleeping in each other’s shadow
bored by each other’s demons,
walking past the blank of each other’s mirrors.
But I still hear that song.
Can you still hear it, love?
Would you still make the leap?