Sadie’s most recent chapbook had been published by a small Northern California press just a couple of months ago. She’d labored over this one for nearly a year, rewriting and rewriting each poem until every letter, every apostrophe, every semicolon felt exactly right. It made perfect sense that James and Arthurwould have a copy; Arthur was the kind of person who liked to quote Pablo Neruda in casual conversation.
Unable to stop herself, she picked up the thin book. It fell open on a page with a piece of paper, wrinkled where once it had been folded into a small square. Anne recognized it instantly.
From the desk of Anne Harris Lowell. Her own stationery. And on that stationery, Anne’s own familiar script, scrawled below.
For a long moment she stood there with the chapbook in her hand and stared down at that piece of paper, remembering.
February. Sadie’s publication day.
That morning, Anne had picked up a bouquet and arranged it in one of her better vases. She’d ordered a spray of flowers—no filler—that reminded her of Sadie. Blue orchids, Japanese anemone, delphiniums, and jasmine.
She’d set down the vase on Sadie’s front doorstep and rang the bell, walking away quickly before Sadie could open the door. Too much to be there in person, too vivid. Instead, she’d preferred to imagine the way Sadie’s face would light up when she saw the flowers, her grin wide and splendid on that lovely face.
There’d been a note to accompany the bouquet. She’d written a handful of drafts on her stationery, none of them right. First:Congratulations.Then:I know you worked very hard on this book. I’m sure it’s wonderful.Then:I admire the way you share yourself with the world.And:I’m so proud to be your friend.One last draft: just the wordIand the letterslo, before Anne had torn up the paper. Then the final version, the one Anne stared at now.
For the bravest woman I know.
A
How had Anne’s note gotten into this copy?
She picked it up and noticed what lay behind the paper: the collection’s title poem. Sadie had once said that it was dangerous to use the same title for a poem and the chapbook that held it. The poem had to be muscular enough to take the weight of all that expectation.
Anne held the book a little farther away from her face and squinted, trying to make out the words without the help of her reading glasses.
Yes, the wave is very sorry to intrude like this:
can’t help but rush unasked to touch the sand,
then scared, recoil.
And the wave comes back again.
What’s tide but obsession’s endless need?
And fear’s a sea that pulls away.
Beloved, I’m sticky with it, both
the fear and the compulsion. Last night
I dreamed you grew a poem in open hands,
held it up to me and called it your surrender.Here I am,
you said,here’s honey, salt. Taste.
Language fails.
What I tell you gets close to the feeling, never grasps
the thing itself. A map is not the land.
Speak anyway. Fail.
Tell me the failure’s worth the trying, tell me
like the tide, tell me again, again, again.