Introduction by Ted Kooser: Marge Saiser is a Nebraska poet about whose work I have said that no contemporary poet is better at writing about love. Here's a love poem from her new book, I Have Nothing to Say about Fire, from Backwaters Press.

You and I on the boat notice

the print the whales leave,

the huge ring their diving draws

for a time on the surface.

Is it like that when we

lose one another? Don't

know, can't. But

I want to believe

when we can no longer

walk across a room

for a hug, can no longer

step into the arms of the other,

there will be this:

some trace that stays

while the great body

remains below out of sight,

dark mammoth shadow

flick of flipper

body of delight

diving deep.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by Marjorie Saiser, “The Print the Whales Make,” from I Have Nothing to Say about Fire, (Backwaters Press, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Marjorie Saiser and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2017 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004- 2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.