Poetry Journal April 8, 2024

 

 

We swam like fish naked to the gills

That summer prior to my going into the army,

A girl I met dragging me to a narrow river

That had built an empire,

A waterway where generations of my family

Swam long before I knew about it

We floating in the shallow water

Under the roadway bridge

And the bridges that fed the rail line

All grass-covered now as it was

When we swam, that girl hinting

At more pleasant things

if I only did this one thing with her,

and I did, yet later settling for a kiss

as she floated away,

I don’t recall her name,

Only the shape of her rising out of the river

On the far side, a nymph whose spell

I’m still under





email to Al Sullivan

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