Camille Norton Estuary The estuarial and ravening tide near Bath, in Maine. The blackbirds on the banks our only spectators. You know the place. A river. Not a river. We nearly drown there. The sea pours through the channel and turns. The sea takes us where we're standing and pulls. Far are the sailors' graves, the lobster traps rotting. Far the blackbirds and the buoys rocking. The sea's an elsewhere. Pellé, I still see your profile turning like a Greek coin in the light, hieratic and austere in your surrender. You could not swim, and I could, barely. And so we floated, our legs trailing through the abyss, our absurd eyeglasses skimming the water like periscopes turned to the sun. An osprey floated overhead. Then it was gone. about Camille Norton