Summary

In “The Shore,” the speaker compares her relationship with her ex-husband to that of land and water at their geographic point of overlap. Evaluating their relations, she compares herself to “a little too much of a hunter,” suggesting her relentless pursuit of her titular “stag,” while she defines her husband by his magnetic reticence (80). She notes that his first partner died in a fire, and when asked to inhabit the position of the flames, he responds, “Delicious” (80). Apostrophizing various concepts, from the elements, to the subject of physics, to a compass, the speaker reflects on the movement of life as parabolic, marked by a “going back, since birth, / back toward not being alive” (80).

“Poem of Thanks” expresses the speaker’s gratitude for her marital bonds since broken. Using professional language to recall their erotic entanglements, she christens him her “colleague of sand / by...