DUNES REVIEW

Fall 2016 (Volume 20, Issue II): 20th Anniversary Issue

NICCO PANDOLFI

SUMMER, SUNG IN WINTER

 

Slept on dunes, nursed by gulls,
Sandstrewn hair and saltworn nails
Names are storms that float through eyes
And soothe them still on leaving.
Yours means youth, or so I’m told,
The proof is in your breathing.

The nights we swam before we met,
A maze of waves between us,
Did the fish our strokes displaced
Change course in twin dismay,
And using fins and tails we lacked,
Seek out some sleepy bay?

The sturdy we in dust,
In mud, shouting through me still.
The way that stone reminds us
Of roots the years moss over,
Of wood stove meals and chickenshit,
The mint lounge in the clover.

Farming in the North, we
Missed a season’s crop of moons.
The manic sun gone mad for want
Of balance wrought by night.
Dusk and dawn plead interval
To measure out the light.

Young summer feet unburden,
Migrate to swallow distance,
Trade winter boots for callouses
And what they have to teach.
We swim out past the shallows,
Where lost moons seem within reach.

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