LATE SUMMER, CHILDHOOD
by JOANNA KLINK
August, listless. A glaze
of heat on skin. The slow
smear of roads
below thick air. What is it
in the luxuriant trees
that drapes onto lawns.
What in the sun
rippling through a glass of
ice. We cloud over
in plastic chairs, we
rattle drinks to cool
our throats. Whole
seasons pass
through us. A fish
leaps from a still pond.
What for?
*
I placed my small feet
on the feet of my father
to dance before dinner
and the guests
arrived. Such ease
in belonging. My skin
has thinned, the cat’s
purr a tremor that presses
into my throat. I hear
a door swing open
but it may just be
sound rushing
through me. Who ever
touches the whole of
their lives? The hours
are found, lost,
found … irradiated,
stunned, like still lakes
at dawn. What is it, Joanna.
After all these years, the visions
continue and I can’t make
out who I’ve been, and is it
a fault I tell myself
what I want most is to be
helpful? I watch my parents
work to sustain the day
when their legs won’t
brace them, their eyes
packed with clouds.
*
Running down the gravel
road, was I one of the dusk’s
flashing mirrors? The fireflies
waiting in shade between
blinks. Was my heart so
invisible, flexible, didn’t
the grasses smell like
warm sand? Was there
a trellis that braced those vines
of small roses? Didn’t I
once hear them breathe into
night? By the creek I saw
fragile rainshafts floating
like mist in the trees.
And heard, far in the woods,
only small things
beyond my answering.
FOOTINGS
by JOANNA KLINK
Someone came with their glowing
machinery to pull oil
from the sea and watched
the dolphins, playing, stay
close to the boat. I bought
a battery. I bit
into an apple, drank some
water, the filtered flow of
cold. What had I hoped
someone would do? The plastics
in the foam washed against
his daughter’s ankles as she
laughed. Someone
mowed their lawn, someone
slept on the mud. The birds
can’t rest on grounds
stripped of willows. Will
no one stop it? Where
are the large language
models that solve for heat
and disease? Nor do we have
our eyes in common. Someone
stares at the power lines, they are
deafening. Someone
you love your whole life
is no longer, suddenly,
who they once were. Motes
of evening clouds in the larches,
noctilucent pools. Can I learn
to hope differently, in ratios?
I am small but I increase.
I have less time. No one
has created a better world than
this—lightning storms
thrown down in the distance,
that hawk sailing through
black heat. Drinking beers
in fold-up chairs we heard
the low call of an owl—our pores
pulled it in. We were
a part of it. We wished
we could be erased for
good. Someone breathes
and you listen to the swerves
and jostles caring who they are
makes in you. Someone says, That
is where I used to
walk. I don’t know how.
Joanna Klink’s new book is Days & Chances.
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