Melanie McCabe

This Day Only

Let go. Just float, was the doctor’s advice.  And so 
I ceded foothold, let my eyes lift to blue, 
my heavy desire bobble and waft.  This drift 
will take me where it will and that will become
where I am.

Blossoms shaken loose, snapped limbs, spars
from broken boats—these, too, have surrendered
agency.  This meander has a measure
I cannot take and yet I take it with every
turn and spin.

This tow, this buoy of bones, is what I long
have feared, and so there seems apt wit 
to note how quickly the rebel will
submits, how swift the concession 
that will let the river decide.

Before The Road

Lot after vacant lot ran ragged with dandelions, with Indian grass,
with red clay that caked our shoes whenever it rained.
Old tires rooted there in goldenrod and glass shards,
in the fallen petals of someone’s butts smoked hard and low.

Listing concrete stairs led to cellars gone to vine.
In a field rose the sudden stonehenge of a lone
gate, a trellis threaded with milkweed and roses.
Improbable fins flashed orange light through a strangled pond.

This meadow of neglect was ours. A willow brooded 
over us, leaned low to hide us in its bell and sway. 
Each evening, for as long as we dared, we pretended 
not to hear the stubborn summons of our names.

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