THREE CRANES

2 5 R T H R E E C R A N E S R I C H I E H O F M A N N 1. Wading low through marsh and grass, quick and cautious, the crane, too, knows this: there is a freedom in submitting to another. Cranes mate for life. With necks outstretched, they take flight, a double-arrow’s stab of silver, released and then gone. I have searched for nourishment in you, like a long black beak in the earth. How was I to know what I would find there? Every night, we shrieked our presence to each other, desire or grief lacquering us onto our lives like birds on a paneled screen. 2. All winter long, the men built another bridge, stacking slabs of metal and concrete near the barrier island where we lived. I was worried we had fallen from each other. Silent on the beach, we watched machines hoisted on and o√ the earth. Standing one-legged in the marsh: a crane, all steel and orange light, binding the horizon. What will become of us? I almost said. Gulls wove in and out of the cables, 2 6 H O F M A N N Y shrieking up and down within its stacks, in unison, I noticed, with our breath. It almost looked like a living thing. 3. Lying on my stomach, reading Crane’s letters again, I felt a hand behind me. Orange light pressed the window. The hand that touched my shoulder was yours (‘‘I know now there is such a thing as indestructibility’’). Your confessor, I listened for your breath (‘‘the cables enclosing us and pulling us upward’’), but felt only the ceiling fan, and tra≈c, somewhere, chafing against a wet street. Then, your lips on my neck (‘‘I think the sea has thrown itself upon me and been answered’’) before closing the book and turning my body under yours. ...