Winter
1964, Fremont, Nebraska
Years
ago
Our
family came here
One 4th
of July
A small
boy drowned that day
His
parents both drunk
My
father stayed the day but never came again
Today
the gravel quarry lake is frozen white
Except
for one ring of blue
With a
solitary duck that seems asleep
The
bird's feathers
Red
& blue & green
A
species of some rainbow
The ice
is thick only along the shore
Covered
with snow
A full
moon still up there in the blue sky
What
am I doing here I
say out loud
I scare
myself a lot of times now
Looking
at this frozen lake
If I
would walk out
Onto
cracking ice
Towards
that bird
I would
definitely sink
Remembering
the firework show
Those
calm umbrella explosions
Of red
& white & blue
That
chocolate cake with ice cream
My
father's smile My mother's laugh
John
McKernan—who grew up in Omaha Nebraska in the middle of the USA—is now a
retired comma herder after teaching 41 years at Marshall University. He lives,
mostly, in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is a selected poems
titled Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The
New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Journal, Antioch Review, Guernica,
Field, and many other magazines.
