b13



Into Neutral

The scene has lost weight.
Just glance at the pond, the famous pond
Where mallards float around memory.

Hockey boys on ice
Scared kids on double runners.
One girl fell in up to her waist.
The crop of algae every June
Greened into August.
Dad forbade more talk about it
And built a swan boat for our mother.
Bullfrogs woke us dogs shook
Fields flooded again one rainy spring
And the sixty-foot sycamore bloomed.

On this last day look out the window.
In afternoon’s early dark
Black ice reflects the sunset.
Don’t slam the door.



JWB Rogers