In the scurry of women filling plates
for hungry children underfoot and melting down,
you wandered off to the wild
grape vines climbing our villa fence.

Stone as makeshift pestle, you juiced
the unripe into sour vinaigrette.
Like medicine, you said at dinner
pouring it over the bulgur.

By day we sat on rough lava rock, soft
sea lapping legs as our girls exfoliated
skin with tiny pebbles, tiny hands.
Beach as makeshift spa, we dug our toes

into life and its choices, peeled layers
till swells turned laughter. Shared
memories danced before us and we lost
which story belonged to whom.

After you left, I went to the bathroom
to make-up my edges, but when I looked
in the mirror, I only wept more
for that which fits, land masses that drift.

Years ago, you found between us
the best place to live, stood in the center
of my soon-to-be-packed-up,
mimed the key you keep in your pocket.

Sea floors spread, trenches swallow old crust.
But this summer, the surf rewrote our silences
when stone ground into skin, pulled juice
from its slumber.

Caroline N. Simpson’s chapbook, Choose Your Own Adventures and Other Poems was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018. In 2020, Delaware Division of Arts awarded Caroline an Established Artist Fellowship in Poetry, and she has been nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize in both poetry and nonfiction. She teaches high school English at the Wilmington Friends School in Wilmington, DE. Read more of her work at carolinensimpson.com.