An Explanation of Doily
(for Adam Zagajewski)
You asked me last summer: ‘What is a doily?’
Sometimes, at lunch, I walk on the beach.
Today I was coatless. A storm cloud threatened,
dark as a spaceship. Should it pour,
a sister ship down in the water
would throw up grappling nets to the surface,
rain rise to soak me. Behind a sandbank,
waves touched the shore, no more than a shimmer.
