Peak’s Island

For three dollars we board a ferry
to the past. The welcome
gate is green with rust. We
are visitors but we know this

is an island for lovers—escape  
as vintage. We slope together
against the Atlantic’s salt
wind. Around us, residents

are mostly alone, carrying
commodities of the city:
Trader Joe's bags ripe with loaves
of wheat bread, cartons

of pasteurized milk. When we
de-board, they transform
to the people of before, storing
food in wire handlebar bike

baskets, pedaling off. You
and I hold hands, tie windbreakers
around our waists, play along. We tuck
our phones into my purse, listen

to pine trees gasp in the headwind.
Windows in white homes open
and silence drifts out. At the Whale’s
Back, we stop. Foot traffic is heavy

and children wave from the gravel
street. Here, in the present past,
I can see a different future: in
which we stay here until

summer loses its green, forget
the return trip to Portland, start again.