In the first days of summer the three elms, those slightly opened fans, unfold their shadows across the river. Two dogs arrive exhausted, tongues dripping, and settle down near the frogbait jars. Aiming their poles toward the center of water, the Sunday fishermen watch the light pirouette off the opposite shore. Their wives peel onions, open wine, do their nails. Most of the men think as little about gravity as they do about war and the weightlessness of time. How could they know that it is only the single, collective thought of their abandoned childhoods that keeps the world afloat?
From The Enchanted Room, published by Copper Canyon Press, 1986. Copyright © 1986 by Maurya Simon. Reprinted with permission of Copper Canyon Press: Post Office Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368