I don’t know why you won’t
have your picture taken with me
under the statue of Poseidon,
but off you go,
and so I ask a bubbly college girl
to snap me with the god of the ocean.
She is too eager to oblige.
It is, of course, because it’s me,
and not his upright trident.
Now, I search for you
among the haunted houses
and miniature golf courses, thinking,
This is too much like an imagined dream,
noirish and overwrought, but knowing
I will find you on a boardwalk bench
eating funnel cake, your lips
and fingers white with powdered sugar,
and, of course,
you will offer me a piece.
William Derge’s poems have appeared in Negative Capability, The Bridge, Artful Dodge, Bellingham Review, and many other publications. He is the winner of the $1000 2010 Knightsbridge Prize judged by Donald Hall and second place winner of the Rainmaker Award judged by Marge Piercy. He has received honorable mentions in contests sponsored by The Bridge, Sow’s Ear, and New Millennium, among others. His work has appeared in several anthologies of Washington poets: Hungry as We Are and Winners.
