Labor Day
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Beneath this blunt And dusky colored onion light, Flounder glint like wet cobblestones Or dismal, rainy lakes. Mackerel and amberjack, Exasperated cod, salmon and trout— Gill-deep in diamond heaps of ice— Possess the heirloom sheen Of tarnished candlesticks, thimbles And old unpolished spoons. Yet here and there, Far more exquisite alchemies persist. A peacock-blue aluminum Articulates a basket of sardines. Bronze and copper lusters gild the chub. These freshly fallen nickel pickerel scales Seem rinsed in iridescent hues Of lavender and jade. His thoughts are otherwhere and far, The monger who relaxes And gazes out Into the oyster-gray, And damp coin-driven, day. His drizzle-misted window frames The clownish colors Of a fruit and flower stand Across Third Avenue. Tulip and orange-bright. Iris and apple. Yellow rose and grape. There are no optimists in here, Only these jelly-eyed Distracted, sad inhabitants of doubt— Mackerel and amberjack, [End Page 233] Exasperated cod, Flounder and disbelieving trout— Who though disgruntled also seem resigned To these September lukewarm easy rains And this cool, humid air, A sea-moist, tacky atmosphere In which, like seasonable ghosts, The tastes of longing and departure blend. And you, whoever you may be, Might well detect them too: A mild salt breeze. Vacated cottages. A padlocked clam shack and the closed café. Those lapping, lightly gasolined Green harbor waters At summer’s still, lonely end. [End Page 234]
Daniel Anderson’s work has appeared in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Yale Review, The Hudson Review, Harper’s, The New Republic, The Southern Review, The Sewanee Review, The Best American Poetry and Southwest Review among other places. He has published two books of poetry, Drunk in Sunlight (Johns Hopkins University Press) and January Rain (Story Line Press), and edited The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press). His honors include a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bogliasco Foundation. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Oregon.
