Semiotics

I went to the Rockaways

to look for dolphins,

saw three, and assigned each of them

a meaning. I called it a sign.

This is what I do. Find a noun,

usually an animal, and give it

an intervention in my life.

And if there is sudden rain?

Even better. I don’t believe

in coincidences

when the sea and the sky talk

in tandem. That’s fate.

Last year, instead

of going to rehab,

my friend booked a trip

to the Maldives

and asked me to join him.

He put the whole thing

on his credit card, and did it

the minute we got home

from Presbyterian on 75^th

while an orange ID bracelet

still spun on his wrist

like the Wonder Wheel.

What should I say to him?

That I admire his audacity

to be ill? That he knows

to be ill is natural

given the state of this world

and how is everyone

not ill, not overdosing

on the night? Because

the nukes are coming.

Our optimism

is not enough

to make it not so.

Our optimism is all we have.

Well, that and beauty.

He always says to me:

Megan, beauty doesn’t need a metaphor.

He asks if

I will stop him.

I shrug. Only he knows

what can save us,

and anyways,

the interventions

I believe in

are not earthly.

I mean, he’s got

Coney Island

on his wrist.

One must look

for signs

to believe in them.