Hometown for an Hour: Poems

Cape Cod Postcard

Cape Cod Postcard The map of the Cape flexes its muscles. Manomet bulges—biceps to P-town’s curled fist. Inlets ripple like arterial highways. I am here alone, in the off-season. The hermit crabs and I have found a hundred vacancies—unheated—and hope to last the weekend without crying. The wind’s baritone is the only culture left here; it gropes for the grass’s high notes in the rain. I’ve strained to hear the foghorn’s boyish tenor but it’s gone, like the tourists’ noisy children. Will they remember it, as I have all these years— the ocean’s rooster—or was it just another summer for them? Today I braved the beach to watch cold fishermen in waders casting off. What is it like to watch the water not for metaphors, but fish? I see the ocean’s muddy hemline rising like the tide of Paris fashions, or wish I were a boat in the crook of Orleans’ arm. I hear of stranded pilot whales at First Encounter Beach and think of love. . . . So, who said poets should be practical? I hope this finds you well when it arrives. 17 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. ...