I remember not being able to remember
this rock. I used to stand six feet above
it and never see the striated gray, the channels
cut by ice so recently run to sea. As a boy,
I’d sprint and slide dangerously close
to the edge, to the rumbling breakers and bobbing
blades. Now I get nostalgic staring back
toward the white wall half a mile from where
I used to touch it, used to slip along its slick
face. It slithered away toward the base
of the low hills I always thought were
more ice. I learned gone here, dangling
our feet over the edge, holding hands as the past
drew irrevocably back from the lapping waves.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 18, Issue 5.
John A. Nieves won the Indiana Review Poetry Contest and his first book, Curio (2014), won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Salisbury University. He received his M.A. from University of South Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.
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