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  • Remembered Scenes
  • Floyd Skloot (bio)

The Moviemaker

My father was a haphazard home-moviemaker. He left the camerarunning in its case, shot directlyinto sunlight, lost scenes in shadow.His hands shook or jerked the lens backand forth across the family huddledon a bluff. He captured nothingbut my brother’s white buck shoesas they moved through clipped grass,me half-headed on an Adirondack chair.I used to think it meant he could not bearto see us as we were. Specializing indouble exposure, he superimposeda summer vacation in upstate New Yorkover a Sunday morning of sleddingin Prospect Park, or a gleaming Sedertable over a morning visit to the cemetery,headstones unsteady in what may havebeen autumn rain. When we packedto move, I found a bag of undevelopedreels stashed in the attic and dateda month before he died. Knowing whatto expect from my parents’ last triptogether did not prepare me forthe sight of cars on the Amalfi Drivepassing through the Coliseumin the heart of Rome, clouds adriftabove a ramshackle hotel roof, or mymother frowning while he tried to bringher into focus on the Spanish Steps,my last chance to see as he did. [End Page 32]

The Hammer Throw

At the edge of a winter-blunted dune,he takes a deep breath and grows still.Then he flexes his knees, rocks his hips,tightens his grip, and begins to spincircles through sparkles of sunlightand flickering shadow as he practicesturning faster and faster, swingingthe ball-and-chain above his head.

My childhood friend is alive again,heaving the hammer at the tideline.And I am with him, dodging spume,marking the flight until the hammerlands in a burst of sand, and I cancarry it back for one last throw. [End Page 33]

Floyd Skloot

Floyd Skloot’s Selected Poems: 1970–2005 was published in 2008 by Tupelo Press, which will also publish his seventh collection of poems, “Close Reading,” this year.

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