Daylight broadens on cement stepping off Powers Island;
A marked man, with name and phone number Sharpie-scrawled
On his orange life vest, launches a creaky rowboat
Peeling barn red into the downstream pull swelling
Deep summer green after rain-soaked afternoons steamed
The concrete-steel half of this mixed-use community—
Its rooms shelved like rabbit warrens, sheltering
Nameless neighbors who nod at the recycling center
And then steal away to blue-light bar sitting,
Thumb sliding and punching in emotion-conned silence:
Hearts afire for the mint-laced cucumber mojito
Sugar-muddling the night that never goes dark—
Oh, to daylight-disappear, to solstice-bask my bones,
To laze-drift under the burning I-285 bridge
Where rush hour stacks up in the idling afternoon
Broken by 18-wheelers lurching forward groan by groan.
I dabble riverside by the root-ripped, lichen-trimmed log
Heard by Canadian geese on its bank-hollowing fall;
The sun’s blue waves dapple-slap tiny water eddies,
And brown-gray plumage runs in short currents
On the plump breast, wings, and back of a moment-still gander
That suddenly hooks his beak in a ripple, stabbing and nibbling,
Stabbing and nibbling, his proud neck arching and turning,
Then shooting up straight—mate alert—his sharp white cheek patches,
Like arrows, paint his black head and crown; I draw a quick breath,
Rocked by this common grace, by the traffic of a small flock,
Heads erect, paddling sideways, streaming with the southward tug—
Honking, endlessly honking, and I hum, out of tune,
A river song impossible to play by ear.
Mmmmm. Nice. I especially liked. “sugar – muddling the night.”
dabbling by the riverside, never has time been spent better. Nice