Poetry |

“August, Old Brickyard, Chilmark”

August, Old Brickyard, Chilmark

 

 

Barefoot into the silky

spillage of clay from rust

 

red cliffs, we scoop handfuls —

gleeful muck, plaster our faces,

 

necks, tanned calves, thighs.

A cleanse must dry — tight.

 

Climb the beach’s broken

ladder for the vast hilltop view

 

of the Sound. Mother/daughter,

we stage a scenic selfie — masked

 

faces foreground, backdrop

chimney of the brick factory ruin.

 

Clogged pores pull open.

A bump centers her spiral

 

fluorescent tie-dyed shirt.

Month seven, fetus detects

 

voices, intuits the order

of waves. Has all skin, toes,

 

eyes, hair. Curls up, cramped.

Elbows his mother’s organs.

 

Fists and lips. Penis. Testicles,

for making his millions, his billions,

 

his swimmers. Her hand attaches

to my shoulder — grip of ringless

 

fingers and thumb. Her furnace,

his universe. Out of the top of my

 

selfie head, the chimney stack appears

to rise from my scalp. My face mask

 

cracks. I had — have — ovaries — two,

no longer productive. A stick-tendered

 

nest sits tip-top of this chimney. Osprey,

white-headed, flies off for the fetching

 

of fish from the Sound for her offspring.

Dives — yellow eyes sighting straight along

 

talons — snatches a striped bass, flies back

to red bricks, fired from this cliff.

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