A Day On The Bay

//a day on the bay

A Day On A Bay (PUB'D IN SEPTEMBER SCRIPTORIUM POETICA '1998)
by Sackvill

Each of us once had
a spouse who'd
pulled away the chair
when the music stopped
as we'd circled
in our marital dance,
a partner who had drummed us out,
left us confused
among strangers,
trying to cope.


We eight
arrive with bottles of recommended wine,
gourmet cheeses, still-warm crab cakes,
crunchy brownies,
to spend a day on a boat on a bay.
Hair freshly cut and newly dyed,
we wear new boat shoes,
matching shorts and shirts,
wraparound dark glasses.
Like pieces of broken glass
hidden in a thick rug
that you inadvertently step on,
bitter words
puncture our conversations,
with sudden shocking pain.
The power boat bouncing on the waves of the bay
creates a churning white wake
that fans out like the bridal veil I wore
years before.
We steer through
a thousand lobster traps,
thick as land mines,
drop anchor
in a calm salt pond.
Gulls squawk. Tiny waves
soothe the hull of the boat.
We stare at a couple who
barbeque on the deck
of the other boat at anchor.
Both boats swing slowly
in the turning tide.
My date says,
"One spark in their gas tank
and they're toast."
We cluck at their folly,
as we munch on crab cakes.
I bare my camellia-white,
sunblocke-smeared arms and legs
to the late-spring, East-coast sun.
"Why?" I wonder,
"Why?"