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Sea-moon blue.  He marries the Paris sky,

her eyes, and a loose knit dress of fine wool.

Just the color, and she’ll never know why—

their love no more lie, their life no less full

than a marriage for pride or weeping want.

A boy will always miss the beach, the gulls—

the thoughtless gaze, the begging and the taunts.

And at low tide the city is wet sand

and the seaside town of seventeen-fifty-five

and buckets of beer and cherry stone clams

and poorhouses, oysters, apples and dives.

          And love is long or far between us:

the distance between New York and Paris.



originally published in Column