1966 (After O’Hara)

I was never a child
but I played
with Philip and Lee
in the center
of the schoolyard.

I loved
the leather balls
and the box
of jacks and
I hugged Philip
too hard.

I tried to let
her see me,
Louise, but she
dropped her glasses
and stepped on them
and ground the lenses
with her heel
as if to say
I will never see you.

And I was never a child
but why must we
why have we
stopped playing?

How far away it is,
the center of
anywhere, the schoolyard.

Where
is Philip, where
is Lee?

Our Father Returns From His Travels

The swim took longer than we thought.  We stared back across the cove and waited for our wind to return.  He couldn’t say, wasn’t sure why he’d sent the blank postcards from Palma, from Lisbon.  But in Andorra he’d eaten a salad of local grasses dressed with almond oil and wine . . . the waiter worked the almond press right there beside the table. 

In front of us, the wake of a passing yacht slapped the rocks and loosened limpets and yellow starfish.  The tide pools flashed and shivered as if filled with new dimes, with mercury.  Remember, he said, your mother’s terrible casseroles?

But I was imagining what I would say to you, later, over drinks at the Charthouse, the harbor far below filling with returning boats, evening just beyond the edge of the world waiting.  Your eyes above a gimlet would catch the day’s last light and turn the color of a rose, like windows at dusk, the raw sunset softened by Pacific distances. 

Our father remembering: