Your mother attempts to clear the bushes
A first infant taste of lunacy
that made me think I could jump the
4-foot porch over the thick hedge
into the yard, scratchless, blameless.
Kid, you’ll be jumping any day now.
You’ll get to know them folks,
them fellas, them naysayers.
You’ll see what I mean:
Always the wide- mouthed expressions,
always, “Are you serious, kid?”
when you come up bleeding
and mount the porch again.
But had you cleared the bushes,
toes in grass, knees unscathed,
family behind you on the porch, cheering,
that’s when you’d have given up jumping.
So anyway, what I mean is, though it
pains me to say it: jump. I still do.
With any kind of luck, eventually
we’ll both make it over.
by Lauren Shows
“Free canoe. Not seaworthy.”
The ad suggested that it could be used
for a sandbox, a planter, decorative piece
but no one, not those you hated most
should peer out to sea from its unworthy hull.
“I will help you load it.” We made the call,
joking as we bobbed down SR 343
then pulled in, gravel skipping, pack of dogs barking
and walked up in the dusk and no-see-ums hover.
We should have listened. The mosquitoes grieved
over a still black pond. We bit back laughs
as the red-faced man said, “Ain’t good for shit,”
and scratched his chin, days and days unshaved.
What else can we do? As the sound of water
enters our ears, our shoes, the pockets of clothes
we unmoor it from the porch, and the rain abides.
Step in. Hope the old man knew he was wrong.
by Lauren Shows
