I’m all right when I completely immerse
myself in work . . .
(Van Gogh)
An emaciated scarecrow
in striped swim trunks,
I sidestroke through swirling ultramarine,
plunge sky waves.
Spindrift rimes my sparse beard,
carroty hair. Trunks snap like flags,
stinging my scrawny legs.
The town below is country dark;
trees snatch at me with gnarled branches,
seize, try to pull me under.
A steeple pierces my thigh,
and I roll into a restful backstroke.
Night fields drowse,
sky churns. Crests and troughs
hasten me, a gull upon the tide.
The world’s aslant, askew, awry,
each star a buoy I tap in passing:
pinwheel, flywheel, firewheel.
I set them spinning,
blow a gamboge kiss as I swoon by.
Ann Howells edited Illya’s Honey for eighteen years. Recent books: So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay Books, 2019) and Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure Press, 2020). Chapbooks Black Crow in Flight and Softly Beating Wings were published through contests. Work appears in San Pedro River Review, I-70, and Crannog, among others.
