So ends the month of August, now only 62 poems to go to finish my 365 Project. Stay tuned.
Day 22
Swimming
I’m not going to swim
in the Dead Sea,
though I carry my swim suit
in case any sea or pond will have me.
I will not swim the English Channel
or across Chickawaukee, give up
on setting records in water.
Ann Briley, Red Cross, held my head
under water, at nine, my part
to say how many fingers
she held in front of my eyes. I guessed
and almost always guessed wrong.
I wanted the Red Cross certificate
of swimming, but my eyes stung
in the salt of the inlet pool.
Now I only swim
with my head up like a puppy
paddling alongside the kayak
gliding still water.
I jump waves thirty feet off the beach,
or fork back and forth
neck deep at the lake. I will not swim
out to the float with my friends,
certain to be over my head.
They say you cannot drown
in the Dead Sea. Ann Briley
would disagree. I feel her hand.
Day 23
Matriarch at 35
She sits, arms crossed
over flowered breasts, scowl
and jowls a mark
of her generation. Block
black shoes the sensible ones
always wore, farm wives
or mail order brides, women
who’d already buried one husband.
Hair drawn back, severe do
for a woman of thirty-five,
cheeks pale and tight. Her sister,
a girl of ten or so, dazzles
the scene beside her. Slip showing,
braids caught in mid fling like wings,
an angel who’d not last
through coming winter. But these
are happy times, family in place for the picnic,
matriarch in her place at the head of it all,
wondering what she’d do later
when she’s alone in the bed
they brought all the way from England,
the only possession she’d never sell.
Day 24
Little Fools
Low tide, the perfume I inhale
today, signals an early winter
with its deeper aroma, its fuller
slick on the surface of the inlet.
Beach glass rolls onto the beach
where I spend final summer days,
where I recall your hand
on my thigh, your breath coming
beside me like the tide. Not many
more days like this one, warm enough
for a swim in the surf, warm still
for a walk along the cliff’s edge
without danger of morning frost.
Back then, when we thought time long
enough to be a little foolish,
I was sure that you would wake
stretching from our night’s sleep,
wake to the perfume of coffee
in our own kitchen. Little fools,
we had our time, did nothing
permanent, but only out of fear.
Day 25
Seven Boys
after Winslow Homer, 1873
They row back and forth
all day, dipping their feet and boasting
of what they’ll do when they are grown.
Too young for work at sea,
they harbor plans for money
in the bank, their own ships
to sail away on the tide,
then row back in
for Mama’s cornbread and chowder,
and the tales their daddies tell
about life at sea. They row back and forth,
waiting for the men they’re bound to be.
Day 26
The Visit
Why all those stars
gathered in the windows
bleeding through the glass
onto the table we refinished?
Why all that moonlight?
I’m back again
where every day was a year
and time ran down the walls
like melting snow. Not long
they said, and I felt myself lifting
over the bed where you’d tucked
the quilt up around my shoulders,
thinking the dying must of course
be getting colder every minute.
It gets old, this haunting feeling
that something was left behind,
something like ... I don’t know what
but something like an itch
I cannot scratch. So I’m here again
searching our room for what it was.
You lie quiet, as if not knowing
I’m here. I promised to come
and you have forgotten, or maybe
you’re just too tired to stay awake
for me. Like when you lay on the couch
night after night but couldn’t
keep your eyes open and I watched
the ball game, extra innings and all.
Why is the radio silent? Where did
you put my glasses? What’s become
normal for you? What’s become of me?
Day 27
Stone
A rolling stone
rolls to a stop, gathers
no moss, but plenty of dust,
dust from feet that stubbed it,
that kicked it aside
under a bush where two birds
are on hand for a lullaby
as the sun goes down.
A stone, stopped from rolling,
gathers with other stones,
becomes a wall good neighbors
call a fence. Moss gathers,
more dust, acorns too, carried
over hill & dale; one ripe enough
come spring, to famously
become a great oak, or maybe a cradle.
Day 28
Summery Night Before the Frost
It rains while we sleep, urging
the last flowers to bloom in fiery voice
along the fence, against the house.
Soon snow will sift down or come
in fury, covering the last blossom,
the last leaf that will fall too one night,
a summery night before the frost comes.
You roll to your side, cup my breast
and sigh, as if knowing our days are like this.
Day 29
Riding
Like a feral cat, he has wandered London
all night, rough sleepers rejecting his need to cozy
in their doorways, their alleys. Near the bridge
by Embankment, he finds a fix to get him through.
Weeks ago he was on top, living a plastic
life with his mates, getting the girl, scoring
every night. Now he is martyred to the life
he scorned when he was a lad, seeing the losers
slipping a few quid into the hands of seedy chaps
on corners. An easy enough slide, one night
at a time. Stoned, he climbs the iffy step
to the bus, fishes in his pockets for change.
Three rows back, a girl he once knew
who doesn’t notice as he clatters
to the back, slumps in the last seat.
Earphones in her ears, she moves slightly
to inaudible tunes they maybe danced to before.
He wants her
to tell him everything will be alright.
She keeps on dancing alone.
Day 30
Sometimes when the rosary
was said in Mossbawn, there was gunfire.
It’s all peace now they say,
but still a bullet might overpower
the night with its prayers around the table,
pints foaming on the sideboard for after.
One voice is gone from the praying now,
needs prayers of its own to wake him.
On the other side, his white hair
takes on new light, as he passes through
gates he stubbornly believed in, where he
may indeed tarry now with his moustached dead.
Spenser is on hand with fourteen lines
about death and resurrection, great love.
He reaches for aeonian words to weave like thatch,
a way to settle into his place. No hurry
Spenser says, scratching his chin over line nine,
it’s all about the turn. From far away and yesterday,
there is gunfire, and the rattling of beads.
— for Seamus Heaney
Day 31
Love, a fantastic tale
The yellow brick road has gutters too,
mossy hedgerows or poppied fields
falsely safer than Alice's tree hole,
more inviting than the gleam of emerald
off in the distance. Certainly not Kansas.
And what of fantastic love?
Tin men with no idea how to please her,
bravery without heart, straw lovers
who lose their stuffing at every turn.
Poor Dorothy, dependent
on witchery for a plan.
No wonder she's so into her shoes.
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