Farm Sitting

Christy throws a rock—
the barn splinters
on the pond's surface.
Startled sunfish dart
to some other place,
anywhere but here,
& I flick my spent cigarette
where the hayloft reassembles,
just to watch it burn.
When she calls from
the far side in her best
mock-bedroom voice,
slowly lifts her tee shirt,
blue jays hurl their flattery.
We might hide in the corn,
or rock the leaky rowboat.
If it took on water,
if the bottom fell out,
then so much the better.
But Christy pulls down her shirt,
presses a kiss to her fingers,
blows it at me across the pond.
How careless & beautiful.
Just like us, too:
I can't catch it for the wind.

Copyright © 2002 John Hoppenthaler All rights reserved
from Lives of Water
Carnegie Mellon University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission