Lady Washington–
These were the days of paper maps
and lost car keys.
We gathered our change for a bus ticket
to nowhere,
though it was somewhere to us.
The smell of drugstore cologne left its mark.
Maps.
Mirrors.
And makeshift excuses.
Purple ink on postcards,
time-worn, yellowed, with ripped edges.
Love had become a dying art.
Promises were penned with a careful madness,
trusting we’d find the way.
Together we’d navigate our destination—
trees versus sun,
desert against rainforest.
Somehow, we’d find the surface.
A sharp bend:
Lady Washington, stalwart in the harbor,
the jagged evergreens stood apart in reverence.
We were sinking years before
she became the Black Pearl.
I could still feel you reaching for my hand.
My feet were unsteady against the unruly Washington beaches—
driftwood, glossy grey rocks, the scattered remains of crabs.
I kept falling.
I was still falling back home.
Hands reaching beyond depths previously unknown.
Uncharted, shipwrecked navigators.
Paper maps.
Melted mirrors.
Every imagined excuse, tossed from the Greyhound bus window.
Donner Pass.
A shared fascination with death, life, and the in-between.
Your cologne was still on my throat.
