Semiotics
I went to the Rockaways
to look for dolphins,
saw three, and assigned each of them
a meaning. I called it a sign.
This is what I do. Find a noun,
usually an animal, and give it
an intervention in my life.
And if there is sudden rain?
Even better. I don’t believe
in coincidences
when the sea and the sky talk
in tandem. That’s fate.
Last year, instead
of going to rehab,
my friend booked a trip
to the Maldives
and asked me to join him.
He put the whole thing
on his credit card, and did it
the minute we got home
from Presbyterian on 75th
while an orange ID bracelet
still spun on his wrist
like the Wonder Wheel.
What should I say to him?
That I admire his audacity
to be ill? That he knows
to be ill is natural
given the state of this world
and how is everyone
not ill, not overdosing
on the night? Because
the nukes are coming.
Our optimism
is not enough
to make it not so.
Our optimism is all we have.
Well, that and beauty.
He always says to me:
Megan, beauty doesn’t need a metaphor.
He asks if
I will stop him.
I shrug. Only he knows
what can save us,
and anyways,
the interventions
I believe in
are not earthly.
I mean, he’s got
Coney Island
on his wrist.
One must look
for signs
to believe in them.
