Neruda's Hat by Kelli Russell Agodon
Neruda's Hat
On a day when weather stole every breeze, Pablo told her he kept bits of his poems tucked behind the band in his hat.
He opened the windows to nothing but more heat, asked her to wander with him down to the beach, see if their bodies could become waves.
When they returned he placed his hat, open to sky, in the center of the table. She filled it with papaya, figs, searched for scraps of poems beneath the lining.
By evening, the hat was empty and his typewriter, full with pages that began something about ocean, something about fruit.
And they didn't notice the sky, full of tomorrow's stars or the blue and white swallow carrying paper in its beak.
They sat outside until the edge of daylight stretched itself across a new band of morning, the shadow of a hat washing onto the shore.
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