First and Last: For Larry. Two Poems

The first poem, "Final Approach," I wrote while sitting in LAX almost thirty years ago in 1988 waiting for my then boyfriend, Larry, to arrive for a visit.  I was skeptical and full of doubts.  I felt certain that nothing would work out for me, and that this would just be another disappointment.  The second poem, "You Were A Fisherman," I wrote last month in Portugal while we were on vacation.  These seems to go together.  

Final Approach

As I sit at the airport,

Awaiting your flight

I think of how many before you

Have come and gone.

How many gates and terminals

Others have crossed

Moving in and out of lives.

I have kept vigils before

Over those who come close

then disappear.

Like a specter, drifting away,

and I have my own version of this.

Leaving without a word.

Touching down and taking off.

In my heart I go close,

Then fly off to other lands - 

Islands where silver fish

Feed out of my hand -

and I have seen you come and go

A Million times or more,

In disguises of beasts,

Pirates and wizards,

In the night like a stalker

You've landed in my dreams

And planted memories of moments

Yet lived my nights restless

With your promise.

But they have just announced

Your final approach

As I hurry to write these words

And wonder if this won't be

for the last time.

There is talk of fog,

A radar landing.

Remote control bringing you in.

But a calm comes over me

As if this were my last moments

Alive on this earth

and I am at peace

with all I have done.

I feel you touch down

In perfect visibility,

and I spread my wings

To take you in.

You Were A Fisherman

It came to me this afternoon

At lunch in Nazare.

What I hadn’t understood

In all these years.

Gazing into your sea-green eyes.

How else to explain

Your fear of water?

Of the ocean’s depths.

How you have felt the tide

Tugging at your toes

And so none of us drowned.

It was in your other life

That you were a fisherman.

You sailed the Atlantic

Your hands slimy with fish;

Your briny breath.

You were a fisherman

As you stood above the dark swirls

Just before I pulled you down

As you caught me

In your web,

In your tangled nets.