Tenet Meadows
       

Soon the committee members
will convene in shin-high waters

of the kiddie pool at summer
camp. In canteen I spend my last

dime on some toothsome flavored
seltzer while I watch the others play

by rules not mine. Already I am the suit
control wears best. On Monday I went

pell-mell into a fence post and bled
through the crotch of my new white

shorts. You guess the rest. Here's what
concern should look like: five seagulls

slowly turn their gazes toward their
own reflections in the chapel window.

All that remains of our ship is nails
Pastor Dan says. We are a small house

in a big-house neighborhood. The kids
chirr like longhorns in dead corn.

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Copyright © 2016 Robert Ostrom All rights reserved
from Ritual and Bit
Saturnalia Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission