Summer on the Lake

As children
my sisters and I spent summers shucking corn on the faded, wooden steps.
We watched moths box furiously in the porch light and
swam across Damariscotta lake to a secret island,
suspended by musty orange life jackets.
The camp was sanctuary.
The linoleum floor made a sound like sticky tape.
From my bed I imagined a stain on the ceiling was a wolf’s head and hid my face.
We slept chilly nights under warm, woolen blankets of innocence.

My father knocked it down.
In it’s place he built “the new and improved camp,” and
I have almost forgiven the insult.
He has described in detail the handpainted tile, the loft upstairs,
the entertainment center and plasma t.v.
Dad calls it home now; he brought pictures last year.
I poured water on the photos in my mind,
and wiped them away.
He encourages us to visit, he has for seven years now,
but I maintain that as long as I do not see it for myself,
the camp is still standing, old, weathered, a worn blue shoe.

As long as I do not see it for myself
the wooden plaque by the door still says RESCH in chipping paint.
Still standing out back is a double-seater outhouse; I’ve never been inside.
There are giant lobster claws, shells cracked and glued and resting on the window ledges,
remnants of a family that was whole
a table covered in newspaper
buttered salted corn and board games.

There are things we hold on to because we have to.

Watching Sunset from the Smokey Mountains

Shades of yellow, orange, pink, and red
fade like line-dried clothing
into blue, purple, and finally grey.
Some feel closer to God at this altitude.
I feel farther away.
The vantage shows all too clearly
the limitations of mortality.

I have been to the Met;
I stood, a statue, before an auburn haired siren
painted by a man so arthritic
his assistant tied the brushes to his hand.

Jealous of his pain,
I later scratched eyes on a canvas
with a dry brush,
I wrote page upon page with an empty pen,
my own hands tied by inferiority.

I climbed today for inspiration, elevation,
for a song, sung in color.
Instead I am mocked by a mud puddle,
not even the painting itself, but the palette;
I can only descend and imitate.

Soft Shelled

Wading on the sandbar
you turn to look at me,
and I am brimming with love for you,
your funny hat,
your sunburned smile,
your childlike clumsiness.

We have come here hunting crabs,
a primal weekend outing.
We don’t cheat with traps,
instead stalk each individually,
a loud splash,
a triumphant yelp,
for every pair of
brilliant blue claws.

“They too, fall in love you know.
Cradling the female under his body,
the male takes her safely in to the grass.
She sheds her protective shell
one last time,
lays on her back, opening her
triangular underbelly,
a secret entrance.
He carries her again until
she hardens and swims away
to saltier waters.”

You said, “They are just ‘animals’.”
I said, “So are we.”