for Kate
Today I’ve been remembering
summer squash; strawberries
ripening; cucumber vines
wound through chicken wire
the way life and its absence are
threaded between lines of a poem;
apples proving gravity’s
gentle tug, the constant pull
of an underworld shrouded
in the aroma of loam, limbs
lifting back into place, relieved
of their cumbersome load;
and you, mending a hole
in the fence, the guilty bear
not even hiding. She peered
over tall grass, lifted her chin
as if laughing, amused
you’d be fixing what she’ll wreck
again, bemused you haven’t
given up, haven’t let yourself
believe in wastes of time.
I watched you patch it together
lovingly, line by wire line
like a story told and retold
until only a character’s name
stays the same. The hardest part’s
knowing no animal, not one
of us, will ever learn to be
content with the fruit
shaken loose from the branches
that stretch beyond a fence.
Later we spoke in voices hushed
by the summer night until all
that remained was wind
in Douglas-firs, the river’s
not-so-distant roar: sounds
we learn to call silence,
a word I still can’t bring
myself to believe in.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 14, Issue 2.
Brian Simoneau’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boulevard, Cave Wall, The Collagist, Crab Orchard Review, DIAGRAM, North American Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Waccamaw, and elsewhere. His work also appears in Two Weeks: A Digital Anthology of Contemporary Poetry. He lives in Boston with his wife and daughters.
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