Waiting

by Bobbie Jean Huff

Originally published in the New Quarterly Issue 173

Wading through the tide in

Bar Harbor bay, Georgia spots

the perfect rock—smooth, flat,

made for sitting.

Just as she always found the

perfect shell or chestnut or autumn

leaf when we tripped out on acid

when we were young.

We clamber onto the jetty,

our sandals sliding over

lichen and foam,

and spread our towels.

We are fifty, and trying to cover

a thousand miles and twenty-five years

in a single afternoon. In a restaurant

over lunch we examine our losses—

parents dead or failing, a husband

gone temporarily astray,

a child who can’t seem to feel her

way into the world

—and gains.

And then we pull out the present,

to find that because we both like Celtic

music and the writings of a certain

Vietnamese monk, and because we

believe in the worldview of change as

The Great Truth,

If we lived in the same town we

would still be in and out of each other’s

kitchens.

Back by the jetty I splash cold

water on my face, while Georgia collects

seaweed to feed her Madonna lilies,

and I realize that once again we’ve made a past:

This smooth rock, this grey foam, this

reflection of ourselves in each other’s eyes,

and—as we leave the beach—the vision of

a perfectly white gull swooping

over the water as the sun disappears from the sky