Brad Bostian
Dinner at six
and then we die,
He says, sitting on a battery
Tilling a small
electric motor
Across a finger of the sea.
Oh but let's
not get there yet,
I say, bouncing from wave to wave
Sustaining these
sea-finger bouncing blows
In the wake of the Cape Cod tourist boats.
It happens
whether we like it or not,
He says, and with these blood clots
I could
go at any time. He winks
But it is only the spray I know,
Yet with
every eye that closes
Another universe dissolves.
And if it has
to be death, I think
My little dog may be a thousand miles off
But the
wheel she rides on
Is so much faster than mine
And so like a paddle
wheel it is
And when it dumps her, it will dump her
Into the drink
along with all the others
While my life
goes on like a green lazy stream
With no wheel but the current gently
turning,
No ripples but the trees reflecting into thirds,
No prayer
but the forest bowing overhead
Into the blue mosaic.
I could go
before you, I say,
Pondering again my fretful dog
Whose short legs
might be sturdy
But they often move so fast.
I relax more
nowadays, he says,
And when I work, I work energetically,
Get more
done with less.
Then stop the
boat and let us drift
For heaven's sake! I say.
But dinner, he
reminds with grill-smoke
High on the rock hill, the young mother
Waving from the bank, the toddler
Orbiting her legs, my own head
Spinning, Let's go, he says,
Aren't you hungry? And yes,
I realize as
the sea has calmed,
And we could stay this way for hours,
And I would
stay this way for hours,
Hungry?
That most unfortunate thing I am.
