Tricia Knoll Verse-Virtual 2016 August

August 2016

The end of summer brings back memories of going back to school and later teaching high school English, a kind of melancholy that the days are shortening and the harvest is done, drying or mildewing. My poetry collections include full-length book Ocean’s Laughter (Aldrich Press, 2016) and a chapbook Urban Wild (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Website: triciaknoll.com

Watching the Wash Dry on the Deck Line

He thought I was kidding, saying that what I’m doing
is watching the laundry line in listless sun.

My black gym clothes, two jade green towels, his cranberry shirt,
and the blue sheets sag in an end-of-August breeze.

One towel dried the dog. Thin clouds flatten out the sun,
while the half-hearted pother-breeze whispers a sway

in a rainbow windsock. When I was a child, this deck
would have been big enough for an entire playhouse –

three chairs, two glass-topped tables,
a birdbath for a sink, railing walls.

A family life with brooms and brothers,
an inner sanctum inside overlapped bed sheets.

This afternoon’s so quiet the sparrow hops the deck edge
as if I’m not here, a cabbage white flits through,

a carpenter ant runs the railing
above a potted geranium so red-orange

I see with bee’s eyes.

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