how uncanny to be attempting to explain

what is happening. right now. “i don’t
know,” an old man in a porkpie hat says
and rubs his old eye with a gnarled hand.
“you have to pay attention when you speak,”
says his wife, or a woman sitting next
to him. “that’s not fair, that assumption,”
the daughter (lord knows) replies, and looks
out the dark window at the mass of water
fringed with hastily spotted lights.
“i was describing myself and you were
describing other people.”       “yes,
but not in the context of this discussion.”
the older woman laughs out loud, looks
to her husband for his of-course-there
nod, which reverberates down his sun-
browned neck. there is a silence
after that. a silence and the boat
pulls away from the shore.

she has her mother’s mouth. like her
sister, who says, “it’s different in gymnastics,”
all slumped in the blood-red ferry-liner booth,
her pip-swiggle legs akimbo as if attached
by tenuous strands to her tapering frame.
“it was good, we won!” she says into her phone,
her voice leaping and somewhat unconvinced,
just beginning to take the shape of the
woman pressing forth from beneath her skin.
“do you think alex or charlie will be into it?”

the boat goes on slicing up the silent sound;
great flocks of individual seabirds grudgingly
lift off the vinyl swath of deep water before
the smooth lurching hull of the wenatchee.
“isn’t that what you’re saying,” the mother
says, interrupted by dave niehouse, who
erupts in un-asked-for advice and direction.
“in the event of a ship-board emergency,”
he drones on in his cheery, practiced voice.
and when, unavoidably, he resolves to “my,
oh my,” you just don’t believe him. no one
really does.

Comments

[mark jessup the first, second counting my father]

Dude, you still got it. I think you might be the only friend I have that I can honestly say I read for the sheer enjoyment of the diction.

Well done, Robaire::

[mildred township]

welcome words, brother jessup of the clan jessup of the posse what scribbles the effervescent wordlings!

[2.7 minute abs]

jessup owes me a 4 pack of wine coolers. hhmm.