You are Still Like the Sea                       

Under the drone of this Chianti
(the brine not a buoy),

I am this toy sailboat on a shelf.
You are red like the wheelbarrow

floating in the Dead Sea, still
like an easel or lemonade stand,

like the scent of the rhododendron
and bread, like the raspberry drupelets

in the abandoned polo field, where
the paths were once our driving range,

like the stunted old tree, now a stump
with a family crest carved into it,

like the nest of the lark you saved,
like the basement full of masterpieces,

like the last letter in a glass bottle
scrolling down stream,

you are never ending and still, like the sea.



Laura Modigliani holds an MFA in Poetry from the City College of New York, where she teaches freshman English courses. She has been published in various online and print journals and has completed two chapbooks. She is the 2005 recipient of the Jack Zucker Memorial Prize in Poetry and a Goodman Fund Grant. A native New Yorker, she has worked in publishing as an associate editor and freelance writer.