Threads

I.
We dropped stones in the brook
and jumped across.
We watched the wiry boys patch
the bridge over the town river.
The paper that summer reported cranes
swinging steel beams above a wide city bay upstate.

The ocean has no one crossing;
a new journey must always be made.

II.
A button dropped off my coat.
Stooping to search in the joints of the sidewalk,
I felt that much apart.
It comes down to half foot threads.
The tip-tap-tap of a button skittering away
has no word that I can tell you
nightly on the telephone.

III.
Many people must lay awake
running a finger tip over their tucked knees
thinking: if I separate
the touching and the being touched
I can be everything to myself.

IV.
I found the button, but not the thread,
so it sat on the bureau while the winter
reached its cold finger under my cloths.

V.
You returned, jetting across the blue,
and still we had no words
for the taste of Italian streets,
for the eventuality of lonely nights
spent kissing unfamiliar things
when one finds herself still shivering.