——–Destin, Florida
It doesn’t mean much that the sky’s at war,
convulsed with a dark charge far out of reach
over bright squares of condos on the beach.
It’s no big metaphor
that our good aims have sunk to bad slapstick:
boat on the blink, the skipper doubly pissed
(his deckhand/girlfriend says he’s a bigamist),
your wife bent double, seasick,
and you sphinx-silent in your box of ashes
we can’t force open. It’s just coincidence
vacation and frustration rhyme: offense,
close quarters, sniping, clashes,
Mom staying home, you out casting your line,
storm clouds be damned, kids vicious in the Prius.
Does heaven ever equal our ideas?
Now, too, it’s not a sign
that, back in the gulf you loved, a luckless fish
has taken the lure we dropped, not wanting to,
the tight-lipped box unseals at last, and you,
fulfilling an old wish,
have moved to Florida. Briefly freefalling,
you give the wind a shape, and—so. Goodbye.
We lift our eyes to the unquiet sky
and no one speaks, recalling
how we have felt the burden of our backs
lifted as by God’s hand in the hush of salt,
where now Jehovah, roused to the assault,
chops the waves with his axe.
Perhaps the god of power and of glory
rhymes with himself somewhere the wild is mild.
Father, I hope so. I hope you’re reconciled.
Down here, foul-hooked and gory,
the fish has stiffened on the prow, the shore
knotted with condo lights, weakly unbroken.
They show no signs of stopping, and betoken
no less, or more.
Christopher Childers is the author of The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse. His work has appeared in Literary Matters, Smartish Pace, 32 Poems, and elsewhere. He is a recent transplant to Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and teaches Latin.
Photo by Ryan Noeker on Unsplash
