Two Poems — Peatsmoke

Rocks

Once my father took me for a ride in his Buick to the lumberyard.
He heaved a bag of sand up across his shoulder and slugged it down on
the counter.
I thought I’d never seen such strength and ran my hands
through the bins of nails and screws underneath.

We were shy with each other. Even later at the sandbox.
All week, he with his briefcase and train schedules, me with
whatever my mother said to him must have worked.

Another Saturday he took me to the creek down by the church—
helped me choose rocks for my collection, splintered off a fleck of mica
the color of molten steel. He placed it in my hand as though a moth
wing
before I knew there were words like

ephemeral

or
gentle father.

Even then I knew this couldn’t last. I was a flimsy stand-in for yellow
legal pads,
5:30 Mass, my brother’s ghost. I wished I was a boy.

I still search backroads for streams. Their wet, mossy rocks and ferns,
gritty bottoms.
I still feel my cheeks for beard.

Breakfast

It’s Saturday morning and I may have finally escaped you—

here in these mountains, there is an ocean of quiet
more vast and welcoming than the sea that once spit at our feet.
Even then not cooling us down.

Amy’s fists press into dough, her floury hands
stir her Vietnamese coffee—strange but sweet—
simplicities same as those you and I tried off and on, on and off,
like those knit hats of farm animals at the fair, such a perfect fit,
until we looked in the mirror and realized, This will never work.

Lake Chatuge sparkles through the trees—
cleaner, clearer than the one you and I used to circle.
We would fight and claw through the heat for air,
mincing words like scallions on a cutting board.
Try to keep from tangling up in the dogs’ leashes;
we were so out of step with each other, it would have been laughable
if I hadn’t kept scraping my knees.

Amy preheats the oven and greets the finch at the feeder
she has just filled—old scabs scatter like seed on the deck.
Breath comes easily here.
The only eggshells the ones she leaves cracked in the bowl.

Beth Boylan is a poet and English teacher at a private high school. Raised in Westchester County, NY, she now resides near the ocean in New Jersey, where she seeks out Nature, writes, and daydreams about where next to travel. Beth holds an MA in Literature from Hunter College, and her poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including Glass, Jelly Bucket, Chronogram, Apeiron Review, Gyroscope Review, Oyster River Pages, and Whale Road Review.