25th Street Beach
Bronzed lifeguards chat with girls-becoming-
women who float by like jellyfish, all tentacles
and transparency. Under red umbrellas, the guards
scan the rabble of swimmers who rise and sink
to the sea’s rhythms. Down beach, fishermen
surf cast their thin filaments, like shore-bound
Rapunzels with a single strand of hair. A lone cloud
darkens a sand spit where a boy builds castles, parapets
rising in the cool shade of nuclear reactors
tireless gulls are painting white.
Come May
I walk out early and hear
…silence. All the small, incessant streams of Spring spilling down the hillsides
have gone quiet.
For weeks those gushing declarations had their say
but now their throats are dry.
And their voices?
When the wind sweeps in,
the new leaves chat like school children.
One Twilight
in the Sierras, the setting sun refused,
scraping its long claws across a tabletop sky. Surrender came slow,
gashes of light holding night at bay. Then, to the west, east facing slopes
changed into their elegant, purple evening clothes. Believe me:
if not for metaphor, I would tell you none of this.
And later, did I or did I not hear an aria of wind singing cliff to canyon?
Please, someone, anyone, confirm this: did I or did I not see
the black sky, unaccompanied by moonlight, make its grand entrance
with glitter clinging to its robes?
Ken Victor is the author of the collection We Were Like Everyone Else. Originally from the States, he moved up to Canada years ago to guide canoe trips, and now makes his home in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals in both countries.
Header photo by vlastas, courtesy Shutterstock.
