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Paul Matthews

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What Does Appelation Matter?

Charlotte and Willow and Thel went down to the Haven
and the boat with TRIPS written on it soon came in.

It was a blue boat with room enough for twelve. We watched them
anxious from the clifftop as the captain helped them aboard.

Gulls. And waves. And a blue boy shouts from the quay
And what is the tense of this? Oh these are enduring things,

except that these girls we love will not be girls one day
but women anxious as a boat grows smaller, stretching the eyes.

But today. Let today be sufficient unto itself, with the girls
in a boat without us and a small rain.

Here at the land’s edge, where the rocks wait without thought
(or it’s a slow thought), we have all grown suddenly smaller.

Where are you girls? Gone out of sight. The seagulls
never laugh. It’s much too serious a business.

Now that it’s high tide all the little boats are bobbing
with their painted names that we can’t read from here.

Oh here where the land ends what does appellation matter?

Yet we who watch say Charlotte and Willow and Thel
be given back to us out of that nonentity.

Page(s) 11

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