Winter Mornings

By Dan Burt

Through frost I navigate Hyde Park
As shapes loom from ebbing dark
When one, red hair drawn back and tied
Above high cheek bones piques my eyes
Which slit to focus. I crane, slack
Way, as last resort change tack
To scout the prize I seem to see.

The western sea splits you from me,
As do your children, husband, faith,
You lie past reach of sail, a wraith.
I know the odds. But still I stare
At a thin stranger walking there,
Like a dawn watch too long at sea
Hailing landfalls that cannot be.