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Someone Else |
I took a seat without comment
at the end of the boat
where Ray had pointed with his finger.
He coiled up the rope a bit,
tossed it aboard,
and stepped in after.
Then he pushed off with one of the oars,
and soon we were floating freely
away from the reeds.
It was one of those close summer days,
all sunshine and little air.
The flashing sparks off the water
made my eyes sore
even after I adjusted the brim
of my floppy straw hat.
The lake was as quiet as linen
draping a corpse,
but mostly I was aware
of its sickening stench.
Someone else at my end of the boat
might have thought Ray a hero,
noting the ripple in his muscles
as he worked the oars.
Someone else might have been awed
by the mountain seemingly balanced
at the mouth of the cove
and by the indefinable
psychic union
that made up the horizon.
But that someone else,
whoever she might have been,
wasn't sitting where I was
at four o'clock in the August
of her thirtieth year,
hearing the steady rhythm
of Ray's deep breaths
and watching the steady slosh
of water at the bottom of the boat.
copyright 2016
Knute
Skinner |
