A Good Idea at the Time

By Brooke Pacy

it must have seemed like a good idea at the time:
to wriggle up from moon-swung deeps, from slime
climb onto rock, grow legs — six? four?
Two — and reach for fat forms shimmering in air
— the ones that hung, the ones that ran —
grasp them with initiate fingers
chase them down with sharpened stone...
and then:
to stay a while and watch
the seeds come up, plant a family
— who doesn't love a gardener? —
and not be forever trekking
after food with blood in it or forever
hauling the proliferating tools and toys
from place to unplumbed place...
and then:
to put it all on wheels and haul
it anyway when seasons
changed and brought nostalgia
— for the whiff of salt, of fertile mud —
crawl with traffic on the one-way road
— somewhat like turtles hardwired for return —
to claim a seaward facing porch or strip
of sand, and watch protected by umbrellas
lotion, costly UV treated glasses,
the unencumbered porpoises cavort right
through the wall of our first, lost home.
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About Brooke Pacy

Brooke Pacy has taught literature and writing in Baltimore, Maryland, spent eight summers sailing the New England coast with her husband, and lives now year round in midcoast Maine. Her publication credits include poems or essays in Animus, Zone, The Pearl, Hidden Valley, Off the Coast, Wolf Moon Press, The Baltimore Sun, and Smithsonian Air and Space, as well as feature articles in Notre Dame Magazine and Wake Forest Magazine. A novel is out looking for a home.

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