Letter to M.

by Christina H. Felix

I am wondering why we never talked about that day we found
a deer on North Haven Island.  Her leg snapped and wedged under a tree branch.
You bicycled back to town for help.  The part you don’t know—I sang her
soft songs and told her eyes lies about the future.  We both felt such loss
when we heard the gunshot from the beach.  I know this.  We had the ocean
sunset to our own, a share of Prosecco.  This was the same island trip when
hiking off trial we got lost and found, a yellow farmhouse with sheep in a
shaggy field white sheets on the line empty rocking chairs.  I knew your
thoughts then too: your desire to realize a future.  What does that future
look like?  This was not the trip when picnicking on three tree island the
tide went out and your boat wouldn’t start.  I am wondering why we never
talked about that night at the inn when you were too tired and I felt friendship
creep in me like the black bird mood of your tiredness.  We called your
fear-mood tiredness then and never talked about that either.