Pairs
by Philip Booth
Years now, good days
more than half the year,
they row late afternoons
out through the harbor
to the bell, a couple
with gray hair, an old
green rowboat. Given sun,
their four oars, stroke
by stroke, glint wet,
so far away that even
in light air their
upwind voices barely
carry. No words translate
to us on shore, more
than a mile from where
they pull and feather.
All we hear is how,
like sea-ducks, they
seem constantly to
murmur. And even
after summer’s gone,
as they row out and
home, now and again
again
we hear, we cannot help
but hear, their years
of tidal laughter