Maybe

She drank herself reckless into year-long, lockdown rehab.

A wild malaise had invaded, her philandering husband marching at the head of the column.

She became lost and lost the only dream she had for herself, birthed at the moment she read The Hot Zone.

A precise, accomplished woman who wanted to travel the world and fight infectious diseases.

She had the degrees, the training, the passion,

the Peace Corps experience where Ebola lurked.

I mailed her a harmonica there.

We had deep history together.

We fought a cultural war together

against dime store creationists,

absorbed body blows,

counterattacked with intellect, sass.

We won in the long run.

Then we smoldered for 20 years.

One day four CDs arrived in the mail.

She had mixed them.

The quartet was called Maybe.

I’m listening to the first CD as I write this.

Feist’s “I Feel it All” says it all.

Everything about our narrative is out of time.

The sequence secluded in God’s Valley,

that last stand of old growth forest in the Coast Range.

I always wanted to show her this ancient place,

so otherworldly even loggers with crosscut saws left it alone.

You walk among these trees, you’ll never need rehab or therapy again.

We had that one chance,

the exhausted tiki bar in Westport

after building 30 cairns on a beach.

The bartender told us the story of how his life was ruined in high school when his hero English teacher blew his brains out during Christmas vacation.

We looked at each other.

We knew what that kind of ruination meant,

an aspiration never pursued that grinds down the mountain range of our promise.

It was there for us.

We’d have to swim the Coral Sea to be together.

I didn’t dive in. You would have because you were a great swimmer

and not just in the pool.

Do you still know how to swim?

I finally learned how.