An Anchorage

I was his home; as long as I was with him, he knew where he was. I anchored him; as long as I was with him, he knew who he was. Actually, the word anchorage might be more fitting. An anchor is a weighty object; an anchorage is a place, a berth where a vessel can be harbored.

            In a poem entitled “To the Harbormaster,” Frank O’Hara writes, “To / you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage / of my will.” To my husband, I offered my self: the flawed and mortal hull of my body and the worn ropes of my will.

            He was the love of my life. I could not set him adrift.

Anne-Marie Erickson

Featured image: Rudolf Koch. “The Anchor,” The Book of Signs, 1930