Pre-trembling
The water waves in easily this
evening, seethes back over the
pebbled shore. Children sleep in
the screened porch, breathing
pale moonlight that blues the cabin.
On the diving rock near the moored
boat, they sit watching rippled
blackness where minnows skitter like
flat rocks across the surface. After
her cheek brushes his and she leaves,
he wonders why anyone else should
visit him now.
He hears the hot water for the
shower, leans back, sees her shirt
slip off, fall below the window ledge.
A piece of driftwood clacks against
the boat while across the lake, soundless
lightening scores an indigo sky.
Lesson
Had to see them saw the clothesline
tree, elm whose flirting shadows
the land knew long before
even thoughts of a farm house.
And when it fell, he squeezed tight his
five year old eyes as the ground trembled
and nothing beneath his feet
felt solid ever again.
Rick Mitchell is a lifelong resident of New York State; except for the four years he lived in Reno and attended the University of Nevada. His poems have recently appeared in The Camel Saloon, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Skylark, and The Cimarron Review, Chiron Review Press published Speaking of Seed and Night, his first book of poetry and Aldrich Press published Before Every Other Fall in 2014.
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