I sit in my shaded garden, watching
the koi and goldfish feed. The house
is closed against this heat, plantation
shutters pulled across the windows.Every week my aunt baked two cakes
in the wood stove, one with the yolks,
one with the whites. Angel-food cake,
sponge cake. Sue cut off her fingertipfixing the well pump. Grandma's street
ended in the lagoon, swampy and dark.
Two blocks down was the stone bridge.
When she was seven, the girl next doorclimbed that bridge and stepped off.
They called it an accident. Everyone cried.
Then the Cities, split by the great river,
crowded and loud, wet air that paled the days.Another town, the smell of fish, boats
docked at the inlet, swaying and creaking.
Cedars and rhododendrons, houses closed
in on themselves. Lilacs. Roses.The Inland Passage, whales breeching.
Wooden houses climbing the mountains.
Crab pulled up from the sea. Rain.
Ravens, eagles, great blue herons. Rain.I eat cherries from Flathead Lake.
They are sharp and sweet, cold
from the refrigerator. Just a few
steps away, the Clark Fork climbsits banks. Somewhere to the south,
it meets the river of my childhood.
The air smells of forest fires. Later
I'll make a devil's food cake.
read write prompt #86: by celebrity guest poet dorianne laux
Leave a Reply