We spent a long time trying to keep it real,
working the in-laws’ false imaginings
into the forest soil later in June.
Almost nobody noted those clues strewn
by early birds, the mystery of life
that grew painfully obvious in the light
of day… Le mystère, we should maybe say,
to keep it deep. Ces Anglais! What to do?
McCool has fantasies of ramping up
the piscatory inputs, as the streams
diminish toward July. He’s finishing,
filling out like a sapling. He feels fine.
Poking into the lake, all hopeful like,
a wooden dock, to which is moored a boat.
Dating himself, later McCool will float,
oars creaking in the oarlocks, pull away,
and head straight toward the sun, the sunny day
dwindling, dwindling… Holy shit, one gets old!
But slowly around here: lengthening days,
and glacial cold, and stillness in the lake,—
with one’s desire knotted in the dream
of last week, it gets easy, it would seem,
to row out effortlessly toward the dim
band of the Milky Way, and there, to breathe.
For Nina Bergen French and Thomas Benton Brown
V.31.2013