POEMS & EXCERPTS
Small Gods of Summer
from Small gods of summer
We were minor deities in a small seaside town
that had no major ones.
You may not have heard of Aeolus,
who made the West Wind gentle,
or of Palaemon,
who guarded the harbors,
or of Glaucus,
who grew fins and a tail and rescued fishermen.
But let me assure you:
They were heralded by their locals
and known to each other.
The sun shone narrowly on our square mile
and brightly on us, bleached and bronzed us,
left us vaunted, hollowed us out.
We filled ourselves up with the fleeting
and fantastic.
from At the lake
At the lake,
we are small and skinny and pink.
We ignore our mothers all afternoon
and secretly wait for our fathers to arrive.
Swimming is a struggle
not to touch bottom,
not to brush against the hairy underside of the dock,
not to drift over the shadow of the dock,
not to appear frightened.
from Pennies on the rail
At dusk, I filled my pocket with pennies
and walked north out of my neighborhood,
slipping past cavernous Victorians haunted by low-renters
and over dirt lots where my grandmother
once flew her kite in the grass.
I skirted east along the main avenue,
where every third house slowly
sloughed its history onto the yard.
Men carpooled into driveways
past the litter of roof tiles and shingles.
I met a friend on the way,
and we snuck to the river bank
to single file down the tow path tightrope.
The water, palsied by the dam, smelled of metal.
The mill was just emptied of clockpunchers
and tilted at our backs.
Drifting the bay
Rondeau
Past the summer’s end, I drift the bay
away from the surface waters and the day
that plunge and cool below in the season’s flow.
The imperative is chronic, true and slow.
Delicate aster blossoms and salt marsh hay
bend in the ebb, and tentacled flowers sway
to paralyze their drifting and pendent prey;
quahogs bed, eels ribbon towards the Sargasso
past the summer’s end.
Scallops propulsing up the river array
acres of intent. I just float to display
my assent, while the jellyfish flamenco
and dueling blue crabs feint, jab, and know to go.
Distant fathoms pull, but I resign to stay
past the summer’s end.
Beeswaxing the crib
I will beeswax the spindle crib
in sections
and have a tiny new boxspring made
and a tiny new mattress.
I will use a soft cloth
and spread the wax evenly.
I will think of my grandmother,
aged 17 in 1922,
unmarried, childless (unclouded by having no child, no beau)
staring in the window
of a Martha’s Vineyard antique shop,
looking at this crib,
thinking of my mother thinking of me thinking of you.
When I’m done,
I will put the perfect fitted sheet on
and, bending over,
will think of you there,
curled like a comma, or a question mark.
I will look at you and make reconsiderations.
I will leave one small section unwaxed
so that I can do this again even after you are born,
this looking forward.
from Force majeure
The day my father’s heart shook and stopped,
aftershocks in Haiti convulsed towards Chile and Turkey
down arteries of fire.
Collapse was categorical.
Help descended on the rubble of his house,
where order would not yield.
Dust plumed around his possessions and would not settle,
as the telephone formed a bucket line of words.
Photographs by Sadie LeStage