neither women nor oysters

by the summer waves
i watched you touch my cautious hand
as though i were made of glass
and you of apple pie:
two separate things
cut off by a ridge two thousand feet high.
and walking a narrow street
an artist sketched in charcoal our gray-black rocks.
he left his landscape bleak,
so for me there was nothing uplifting
and i found it hard to speak.
ninety more miles we drove
to an epic spot near a newly-planted grove
with a view of the ocean and the town square:
a small eucalyptus-shaded villa on the beach
seemed out of order there.
stranded in little heaps around the harbor
were boats upturned, covered with torn nets and oars
like a female body but not yours,
which i now fear is lost at sea
without any interest
in a final glimpse of me.