I want to say something about this business of men and women.  In

Response to my questioning, my doubts,

Some woman once said to me, “that’s what it means to be a heterosexual.”

But that was no help. It was not even any help to her and to me it just

Made the problem more opaque. 

Ill admit there were years, decades when those questions never arose,

I just went about being what I was with maybe a little extra thrown in.

It was good, if scary, rewarding, if painful, natural feeling if preposterous to look at and

Sometimes awkward to perform.

It was everything to the exclusion at times of everything. 

It had no beginning and no end but like atolls in an endless ocean,

Resting places with warm sand and tall curved palms reaching the sky.

We’d linger a while, sometimes days, sometimes years, then slip back into the ocean, sometimes together, sometimes alone, heedless of sharks and

Swim to the next island and there sooner or later another would appear and we would

Repeat the same ritual.

It was undoubtedly a good time, and the sea was then filled with islands.

Now they have grown fewer and it’s possible to lite on one yourself and grow

Bored and lonely before pushing off alone toward another in the distance, youthful hope still singing

In your heart. 

Now there are warning signs posted on the islands.  Warnings and more warnings about what to wear,

What to drink, how long to stay, when to leave, when to arrive, what not to do, what to do. 

And dangers also.  The dangers of the water, the sun, broken glass, mold, even animals. 

You could go crazy observing all the rules.  You do go crazy trying to observe all the rules and you

Are not alone in this, the other is going crazy too. 

Nowadays you sometimes decide that the pain is too much and you push off prematurely and make your

Way out to another island. 

I have heard that this can be stressful, this swimming and swimming even in a warm and fecund ocean.

And I worry about my most recent partner even though I soon forget her and remember partners three or four back and islands where there were no signs, and the sand was softer, the trees taller, the breezes warmer, the sun less forceful, and you could sleep during the day and night and not be afraid you were missing anything, and not wake up alone, and not believe that anything would change.

I wonder will I at last come to some more substantial archipelago alone and make camp among the trees and have my coffeepots and cooking gear that I have become so familiar with and so covetous of all for myself.  Or will some straggler at last make it ashore tired and worn out, nearly without hope, weak with exhaustion, frustrated and cynical. And will I make her breakfast the way she likes it, and refrain from questioning her, correcting her, interrupting her, instructing her in the ways of my island?

Will I just sit quietly by her side and watch the sun go down and the moon rise lambent in the velvet night sky and look and wonder until we both lapse into sleep?