38th Summer

A woman sits alone on the twilight steps of a Pocono house.
She smokes a cigarette, holds an empty glass,
watches her son toss a ball with the boys next door.
Hair wet down her back from a cool shower,
legs of a willow bent to her chest,
shoulders russet, lean;
she is July, except for her eyes,
dark caves closing where moonlight used to be.
And a thickening in the middle
from the pills she takes for her moods.
She looks toward the woods
where her husband saw a black bear that morning.
Her son won’t play outside without her
so she sits and smokes, glancing at the canopy,
leaves that move with the breeze.
She thinks, for a moment, of a man
who hooked her need to be held
hooked her through the eye,
then threw her back blind.
She thinks her age has seized her this year
and wonders how she lost that lead
without hearing the quick steps behind her.
She asks what worth for her, this life,
when the pond has been emptied of fish
and the mountains are thick with
rocks and trees, rocks and trees.
Squinting beyond the thicket,
she looks for signs of a black mother bear
who could tear her, these boys, raw
with one swipe of her claw.
There is only one place to go, she thinks,
stepping on her cigarette and calling her son in for dinner.
The screen door slams, as birds with ragged wings
circle high above the mountains.
August 1999