Tuesday, June 14
LAKESHORE SCENE
Could you imagine loving someone like that?
my grandfather said, gesturing at two canoe-boys
kissing, as they glide over the water, ordinary desire
casting a quiet love, I thought, across the lake like falling snow.
He was not a nice man. He sucked his teeth and spat. No…
I thought, though I could and did and would.
On the shore with him, imagination was the weather
of a better world. I curried my mind to invent
another body into which I could hide my life.
The wind picked up. The canoe-boys docked.
All the good men went home to kiss their wives and daughters.
The air was wild with summer. We sat in the silence awhile.
His brutal brow twitched. He thumbed the slits on his linen shirt.
Like this, I learned to love by watching. My shadow
on the lakewater is a little man
obscured by the shadow that swallows it whole. (David Ehmcke)