fall sinking

fall sinking

I know there’s a lake somewhere beneath the fog

a dock, some Adirondack chairs, Grumman canoe, Sunfish sailboat

fresh pine plantings at the shoreline to replace those recently hewn and

floated off by a beaver who’d built a lodge 80 yards further along – without permits! -

over at the edges of the camp

the one that closed at the end of the season

twenty years ago and never re-opened

its buildings sagging falling apart some tipping over

dampness from fog and rain rotting uprights, joists and flooring

prising them season by season

from foundations, laughter and songs of kids now with their own but no where

to send them for the session.

I know there’s a lake somewhere beneath the fog

shrouded, wrapped, enfolded, sleeping;

still I squint past the lawn down the hill to a golf bunker placed and

your favored garden Buddha displaced by a son who’s embraced Rory and Jesus

denounced Tiger and gleefully destroyed idols like the Taliban at Bamiyam.

It’s early September and leaves already fall. Flat. They’re so soggy, they splat,

can’t crinkle yet arrange themselves as a runway on which

a doe and her twins saunter by silent and casually attitudinal.

An owl hoots; I reply “Whooooo’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?” then ponder

if I even exist and wonder if Martha would divorce me too if I did.

Rain continues even as the fog lifts slowly

pulling her hemline upward like a stripper in an old cowboy movie

not like the already half naked babes in a late night pay per view special,

shore, shallows, swimmable and, finally, sailable depths revealed

the way you used to when we first met, all modulated to our music:

the tease, the look, loosen, rearrange and remove. Very effective.

It was riveting until I realized you’d come undone,

were painted not caulked and were taking on water

sinking before my eyes your insistence that you were now a submarine a

conjured fantasy that only you managed to see.

The rain stopped, the sun broke, fog lifted, the lake fixed and landlocked:

your berth's empty:

you’d capsized without a sound.

A younger owl tweets. I look, shrug, type “Albee…Edwin Albee” hit reply.

An acorn drops, ricochets off branches

clunk clack booooooong crack click

falls like a ball in an arcade pinball machine that

hits leaves stems … bing bing

cartwheels around branches …cling ding clackka clackka

flies down the trunk …  boing boing bing

slips past the keep in play flippers thwacks me in the head and…. SCORES!

bing bing bing bing bing!

I’m startled though I heard it coming even tracked its path.

There’s a crack and another’s in play.

I remain hoping that acorns don’t strike twice yet look upwards before

scanning the surface to see if you’ll somehow kick free and emerge gasping and alive.

I hum the Titanic theme.

There are no bubbles and the water’s already cold where you sank.

Around me, it’s a glorious day.