Out on the Pontoon Boat
My father tells me how they
suffocated the lake
by dumping autumn’s aborted leaves
from blue tarps bright as the sky.
Took them at least a decade
of raking the raw red bodies,
scythe-like, of white oaks,
the yellow aspen bells,
to see progress peeking its
blighted crown from the dark
kettle waters. How the rotten polish
glistened with sog & murk.
How you could see the thin memories
hanging onto each other like
puzzle pieces, even in death.
How there was no forgetting
the staunch wall of disgust
& masking of noses. At first,
on the boat, then on shore,
finally the cul-de-sac.
My father tells me never to go that far,
stay away like how you keep so quiet.
How he shouldn’t have harbored
his silence deep in his belly.
Migraines stay with me the way
killing millions ended up killing one body.
At the time, he says,
what issue could have surfaced–
not even the trees
would keep their children.