1974
In the barn
I have finished
hammering scrap
wood together
in the shape
of a boat. It
is dusk. On the
steps of my
house sit three
naked men. They
are wet. Droplets
slip from dark
lengths of hair,
bleeding into,
moistening those
brick steps they
sit on. And
they laugh. Pa comes
out of the house
with towels
calls me, then,
to introduce
them. They are his
graduate
poetry
students who drank
jug wine and walked
backward into
the frog pond.
As I shake their
dripping hands, they
laugh, guess at
how awkward
this must be for
me, though does not
seem to be.
What I can’t know:
I will never
see a thing more
magnificent
than three drunk,
naked poets
on the stoop of
my house, drying
themselves with
the towels I
will use for ten
more years of baths.
Relephant read:
The Solitude Paradox.
Author: Rachel Astarte
Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock
Photo: flickr
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