so Pocahontas might emerge again

PONTOON BRIDGE

The timid sun blanches behind these clouds

of January dim.  The miniature

ice-floes speckle the river

as they move south.  Chilled Hobo nods.

Yes, Henrah, there’s sleep-work to do

in this hibernation.  Dream-

boats a-building.  My trireme’s

a ship-in-a-bottle (of Irish brew).

See through the glass?  A beauty she is.

A bloom of almond petals

like a round of Grumman metal

canoes (nickel-dime aluminum Kris-

Kraft, maybe).  Like a micro-tuned

pontoon bridge, bent

from Iron Range to Ghent –

gildered from Gravensteen to Gravesend.

Henry slumped on a frigid cottonwood

stump, stumped.  The lantern-

bark in Hobo’s paw turned

green... little nef of oaken holly wood.

Cathedral Mary mine... he intoned.

Turn back the puny gangsters

of the bleak – these drugstore

Minotaurs – high Fraudulence enthroned.

So Pocahontas might emerge again

& roll Rebecca out of Gravesend

lifting her golden wave of corn

enchanted, vertical... toward Washington.

1.13.20