Thousands of tiny <br />fists tamping the surface of the lake <br />flowing like a wide <br />river gone crazy, southeast, westnorth <br />letting the wind push <br />it around in its bed and the boat <br />hull hugging the shore. <br />What else can she do? Even the trees <br />agree, shaking <br />their crowns, throwing down their leaves as if <br />she were their only <br />child. Caught cold-footed in Magnuson <br />grass, trying to cut <br />free of the creosote-soaked pilings sunk <br />deep in the shallow <br />mud holding the water, holding her <br />wake for a moment, <br />furrow folding back over into <br />confusion. Cascade <br />gray crosscurrents! Sharp switching eddies! <br />Unreliable <br />shoals! Let the cloth argue with itself, <br />gasping like a child <br />with the air knocked out and the wind <br />socking the center. <br />Let the sail, shot-silk green and white, now <br />snapping, billowing <br />slowly draw her away from this beach <br />marked with broken glass, rocks <br />as smooth as plovers’ eggs, and small <br />stones splashed iron red <br />and orange like the sky breaking open. <br />Let the windows ignite <br />flickering copper on the other side. <br />Let the water be <br />disked with silver from here to there <br />churning as if roiled <br />by the flanks of a great, gentle fish.<br /><br />Christianne Balk<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/departure-9/
