After “Giverny” by Ian Pople
Summer pollen settled
on the taupe plywood fence you leaned over
to pet the neighbors’ full-grown
pig, its belly dragging the ground in the yard
covered with rusted toys and inflatable pools. You stained your
best white swimsuit.
Then, through the pale pink
and green of the pier, we saw the umbrellas
in yellow stripes and the rainbow candyfloss ones, all in front of
the mural
of a woman looking at the ocean
through a telescope, the sides
of the telescope painted grey
and flat because
the glass, the reflection, the clarity,
was complicated, and so the patch was painted
over and repainted several times, to perfect
the mistake, and so the woman was looking
at nothing at all, except her own face— round
like a full moon over the Gulf,
but mostly blank. You declared the mural
super, remarkable, then sprinted into the Atlantic,
grinning as you showed me a discarded styrofoam cup you
found in the waves, as if it was (?) a trophy.
I feel like this is an important detail.
That night we ate linguini on the porch
during a summer thunderstorm, and you were laughing while
branches were falling
in the backyard, covering moss green spots
with grey flashes, and I was looking at you
as if I was peering through that woman’s
telescope, a telescope warped
by the girls who had held it, who had sung of its sight, who had
sung of brief love in the summer.