AMANDA ACKERMAN

Summer Poem Written in Fall

I.
While we, you and I, wait for the story of two in a boat
and we thought the fog was able to pollute everything
it turns row upon row of linked slippery pearls
and it turns the tide
warming white chalk stones on the mouth
I will relay how:

Once I was named Grand and Often, and the Beak of the Canary, I was appointed (self-appointed) the first grand, permanent resident of a certain small landmass near the Cayman Islands.  I self-administered a health check and granted myself (delegated by myself to myself) a seven-year work permit.  I made it out of a tightly-folded white rose and bound it with very pleasurable pink ribbon that I pulled, like a train, directly from the sun, where the mouth would be.  I was now a mythological creature, and I was my key employee.  I assigned myself the profession of making mace and vanilla tortes.  However, tragically, I worked myself too hard.  And now I am weary like a threadbare coat with no creaturely binding, nothing sewn tight about my ribs with rough material.  Am I free because I have no physical constrictions?  Tough to say.

II.
We are waiting for the boat     
of dried fibers that kick and fan through water
and shells that boast threads and small filters;
in the sea in 1503
there was an extraordinary array
of dried salt that never turned blue
and controversies, and aromatic scents
but there is an image that would settle us
and tell the story of two in a boat.
I will relay how:

Once I was named Grand Hurricane and Turbulence and devastated 90% of the homes on my small landmass (my home of course, being the only residence, was 90% gone).  And in the devastation’s wake I will relay how I picked – where a rusted canary’s cage had sunken, tottered, and become wedged in the sand –the mythological.  As my seven-year work permit had expired, I was desperate for employment and therefore compromised my morals.  I wanted new clothes.  I wanted irises and more of them growing in a planter in the garden, and starched pink curtains and collars, anything starched.  And so it was that I was contracted by an Overseas Territory to wreak havoc on my modest, independent commonwealth.  Because I can be honest here, frank that the fog was able to pollute everything.  And I was right about the wood of my house rotting, and I could provide myself with nothing with hemlines or hoods to wear at night.  No glass, no sugar, and nothing to place books on.  You can certainly understand that as a non-citizen (self-appointed) I had little other choice.

III.
You and I do not look up, we do not.
There is a flare
if the center of the sun has a center
that is not dull, still or planar
and the ground is not far and separate from the sun yet
the ground is not ringing yet
the ground is not here yet
so as I wait I can recall how:

Once I was named Grand Non-Resident, Old Time-Span, Most Pre-Eminent Non-Renewable.  I had satisfied the controversy regarding my being a natural blight with the press – my overabundance of air and water – and recruited myself as my own experienced staff.  I began to explore the ground, which I had always been a little bit afraid to look at.  And I am still, and you are, and all of us.  And I saw: a cave with red-cratered starfish and creatures that looked like beetles, night-shaded and tarry; a backwards road under construction; the right time, floating.  The creatures crawled and used chalk to draw themselves into caves.  Then I shipped them out to sea.  In crates no bigger than the cave and the sky, and reaching to about chest-high.  A perfect return.  A perfect giving back.  A perfect loop, a perfect ring, a perfect recourse to balance.