Your eyes shine with the
Sad sailor look that all young scholars
Have, as if the library is a vessel:
A shell with a sail and a man
Who knows his way to the giggling
Magazine-rack girls and the
Tight-lipped librarian as if they might be
Seas with familiar waves.
Your eyes are closed as you study
You memorize facts and recite them verbatim
To your heavy-lidded little sister who does not
Understand what you are telling her, but will
In time, and listens only because she prefers
Your voice to your mother’s
As she stares sleepily into her pillow,
Dreaming of sailboats and seas.
One day you hope to explore the oceans
Of which you tell stories to eager children
And through you know names like “Atlantic”
And “Pacific,” you know not of the dangers
Lying in wait there—the fanged, dormant dangers.
You tell me this on a Saturday
Beneath a blue, rain-dappled umbrella, and
Your eyes cloud with wanderlust, because
No matter how far inland you travel,
The ocean still hums your name
Against the shore and the barnacle-covered
Boulders lining the beaches.
And I wonder why it is
You never will respond. | 
