The End.

Morning.
Gulls loop through the sunrise. I try not to think about hiding out in the shower house last night, avoiding the Ranger’s rounds. It was probably only 20 minutes, but I felt fairly pathetic. Not enough to pay for a few hours of windy sleep, though. Pelicans skim the waves, and my feet appear to be wearing bright white socks in the cold surf.

The Good Life Gourmet.
Sitting at a high café table, trying to articulate the last 6 weeks, waiting. A couple at the far end of the room plans the catering for their upcoming wedding.
“Kate!” It’s Jess, and Emy follows. I fall into their excited hugs. We don’t stop talking, even when a nearby older couple moves to a table further away.

Looking for UPS.
It’s raining. People hustle down the Baltimore streets in shades of black and gray. When I run down the sidewalk, they raise their umbrellas to let me pass, their heads still turned toward their conversations.

The 2:45 to Union Station.
I walk down the aisle and find a seat. Highlighted texts, iPods, cell phones, text messaging, reading, talking, listening. Everyone faces forward, staring at the seatbacks in front of them.
I turn my head and look out the window at the rain. Suburban DC clacks by. I close my eyes. I’m sitting in the humid heat outside a crossroads gas station in Bolton, NC. A tow truck operator with a tiny gold cross cemented onto his front tooth smiles at me and shakes his head. “You got nerve, girl.”

Rita Dove at the Folger.
A couple seats away, she smiles at us, almost tentatively, shy. The former poet laureate of the United States. Later, in the spotlight, she reads from her new book about George Bridgetower, the 1700s mulatto violin prodigy adopted by the King of England:

The Undressing

First the sash, peacock blue.
Silk unfurling, round and round, until
I'm the India ink dotting a cold British eye.
Now I can bend to peel off my shoes,
try to hook the tasseled tips
into the emerald sails
of my satin pantaloons. Farewell,

Sir Monkey Jacket, monkey-red;
adieu shirt, tart and bright
as the lemons the Prince once
let me touch. Good-bye,
lakeside meadow, good-bye
hummingbird throat—
no more games.

I am to become a proper British
gentleman: cuffed and buckled
with breeches and a fine cravat.
But how? My tossed bed glows,
while I—I am a smudge,
a quenched wick,
a twig shrouded in snow.

Columbia Heights.
“So when are you going to stop flitting about the country?” Matt asks me.
I sit down on the couch and tell him I’m going to California for the summer. And then I’m moving to Washington state.

Spring.
The New Hampshire leaves are newly small and the lilacs are budding. I open the door and walk into the mudroom. My shoes are where I left them the last time I was home.