To be honest I’ve lost three places. It’s how things come. My dad wrote that the last time he didn’t see any jellyfish, sometimes the winds push them into Mobile Bay, line the shores with orange-striped remains. Then storms would roll in from the Gulf, kick up a chop and pulverize them till every wave had bits of barbs and every swim was risky. The ocean always giving and taking, constellations of coquina shells along the surf, three houses […]
June bugs, thunderstorms, hurricane glass. I had never been so far from home or so long from it. Some places are just hanging on, even as a kid you can feel it, floating on the surface while the river runs deep. Don’t let that dog out all alone, there’s gators. I lost this place, all the way. First an empty boat slip, the pool filled in, then huddled in the workshop after the wake, sawdust and dust like snow, snow […]
I sleep to wake and wake to dream in dappled shade some long afternoon which says more I do not know: the way the foothills fall under the lake or how this absence shores them up as I sleep to wake and wake to dream quiet descends when the heat pump fades everything has a voice and a silence of its own and which speaks louder I do not know the grapes are small before […]
Here the sun is emphatic, entering rooms just after five and falling in blocks acrossthe comforter. We stayed up past one to watch the moon,the honey moon, rise over the lake, electrifying it. But all I cold say was wow. It’s been days since I lastwoke at 3 am, I can’t say I miss it but in some ways I do. There was a spider tracing the floorboard, rightas I turned out the light. I killed it — usually […]
A strange morning, almost foreign;a stand of mini-Cypress outside the grocery. I wanted to buy one,to buy a Cedar, to do something, anything out of the ordinary. Small change can grow, trees know this of all things, which is why they make such good company.
The neighbors that used to fight all night moved out. The couple that moved in argues louder and later. Plus ca change… Today I am resisting. I will put a stick in the creek, watch the current split in two directions. I think we should do the same. Today I am in opposition– Am I right? (Is the stick?) These things just happen.
Opened all the windows but the house still smells like sleep. Outside, some children communicate through primal screaming, a clash of sticks and gratings. Out for the summer, what do they care about the intrinsic sadness of Sunday morning, that there’s still some time yet — never meaning what it means to mean: for them meaning nothing, with age meaning regret.
This is the most unsettling sky: A white sky. A dead sky; blank– even the birds roll right off. Bright, it admits that it is day. No more than that.
Somewhere up North a high school band drilled across the field, the retort of a snare, the pounding of a bass drum muffled by distance, floating high above the maples, the garden placid save for a man shouting at his child, or his dog, it took all of us a while to actually listen to the words: Help, I need help. And then we ran, stirrup hoes and trowels in hand like some volunteer army, […]
Marsh Island under a clear sky, the power boats come in close to shore, your dog, afraid of the bridge grating, jumped into the water, and you weren’t quite sure how to get her back. Real fearis nothing to laugh at, but instinct– you askedwhy I was smiling, it’s because I know too wellthis urge to bail, to go over the side and swim for shorewhile bystanders point and shout unhelpful advice.
OPTIONAL POETRY 