FERRYMAN

He drove the Studebaker down
the two-rut road to rent a painter


he pushed off into the minnows
and shadows they cast on the sand


then the uneasy adjustment
to buoyancy, lock in the oarpins


and we traveled across the lake
in patient pulls--we could feel


the muscle with each stroke, my brother
in the stern marking our progress


to the marsh, I was on point looking
back on his sunburnt face, the knot


of dark hair above his walnut eyes,
a stranger to us when we reached


the channel and slowed over slick weeds
and muck that pucker and popper


obscenely among the bullfrogs.
We pushed and sloughed through


corndog grass and water lilies
the tea-colored water, we grabbed


clumps of reeds and pulled our clumsy
boat deeper, swarmed by dragonflies


and mosquitoes and sweatblind
we stared at the lone red-winged


blackbird guarding a drowned tree
as the first cool air slipped over our skin


and we emptied into the hidden
lake, slicing easy as a dolphin


into the green water, he threw
the inner tube over and we dove into


the warm aquarium sunlight and clung
to the rubber skin while he pulled


that same strong patient pull as we
circled the lake, weeds rubbing our


skinny legs like limp snakes, through
the islands of slippery lily pads,


our toes scrapping the spongy muck
and in the middle feeling the faint


cold pulling our pollywog bodies


behind the unspoken man we
called father, the Admiral, the


great ferryman lugging us
in this private watery world. 

WHITE PELICANS

Those white
     pelicans
in the grey bay


     sliding
by, sliding the neap
     backwards


looking back
     at the bay
now swelling


they are agents
     of time
floating phenomena


penetrating
     the future slick
as you please


staring down
     into the past
for fish, for


something deeper
     than what they
learned aeons ago


     sure it's
one thing to
     skim


the wrinkles
     at sunset
as you fill your gullet


     here it's
easy, just gaze
     into the past


with the prescience
     the perfect
knowledge


of where
    the fish
lurk


     now as you
pluck them
     as you please


like reading
     this, writing
this, don't think


     too hard
he'd say
     as if he knew


it would all
     work out,
you'll never be


     satisfied,
don't even
     try.

AFTER THE DISRUPTION

No one
     comes here 
          anymore


          in the garden
     of earthly delights
the bayside


pools are pools
     of floating 
          palm fronds


          and feathers
     the egret fountains
that once 


spit water
     in delicate arcs
          are still


          there are no 
     lox or omlettes  
on the breakfast 
     
verandah, no
     mimosas, just
          deck chairs sprawled


          everywhere, no 
     mojitos or frappacinos
just mockingbirds


and wing-flapping 
     grackles disturbing
          the palmettos


          pelicans napping
     on the busted
pier posts, ospreys


roosting in 
     the cupola,
          fetching their 


          daily haul 
     of silver fish, 
heron and ibis


stalking the shore--
     all the splendor
          of the bay


          the honeyed mango
     sweetness and oranges,
the turquoise water


and brassy sunset
     bleeding on
          the surface of


everything, it's
     a squatter's spoils,
          this ramshackle 


          hotel, the bohemians
     have all split 
for their squalor


elsewhere, the 
     vagrants occupying
          the spoils 


          of babylon
     took over as we
knew they would.