Cape Cod Pantoum
Maria Nazos

Tonight you’re loaning Billy your car, a brand-new
seal-gray Volkswagen Passat with four doors,
though last week at 3 a.m., he stole your canoe,
and sank it in the autumn sea, then swam ashore.

Tonight you’re lending Billy your car—it’s brand-new—
and he’s a well-meaning, blue-eyed Byronic drinking man
who last week, at 3 a.m., stole your beached canoe,
and when it sank he blamed it on a dolphin.

A well-meaning, blue-eyed, Byronic, hard-drinking man
whose phone calls you take, no matter the hour,
who sank your canoe and blamed it on a dolphin,
and the young man with him, whom the sea sadly devoured,

so you’ll always take Billy’s call, no matter the hour.
Because, you sigh, his mother’s dying, too, and he’s drinking again.
He’s no longer a young man (he’s sad and he’s drowning),
and neither are you, and all friends sometimes sin.

Besides, you sigh, his mother’s dying, too, that’s why he’s drinking.
She wasn’t a beauty—she came on to you long ago.
And he’s not a young man; he’s drunk and he’s drowning.
So you press the phone to your cheek, stare out the dark window.

Who hasn’t come on to you? (Who wasn’t lovely long ago?)
(Even Billy did; his tragic need, his blank blue eyes.)
You press the phone to cheek, stare out the dark window,
and listen to him make a mess of our peaceful lives.

Now back in bed, we return to our disrupted romance.
Although last week, at 3 a.m., he stole your canoe,
you set a sinking man adrift in the sea of second chance:
tonight you’ve loaned Billy your car again, brand-new.