I KNOW I KNOW ____ MAEVE NOLAN
KURT HAVENS
FOR DOUG AND LIZZIE AND FRANKIE
MOSQUITOES
first mosquitoes in june I crush one bare-handed
that’s my blood shut up it’s anyone’s blood the moon on the unopened pool type o the universal donor
MEMORIAL DAY every sunday
senior citizens sit here
the dark arcade
playing slots let’s spend our
state quarters nebraska maine ___ look!
a small plane pulling its banner an ad two for one something we walk north pretending to
hear the ocean in things these screaming kids
this shell ___ someone points offshore
asking where oprah’s summer home was in lavallette
which direction
pointing out
at the water as if the whole house floats in front of us which way ___ cops lean on
a clam bar eat clams
and argue over storms and
superstorms wind speeds beached boats
looting a fleet
of lifted
trucks with confederate
flag license plates circling under
seagulls ___ two seagulls
share black chunks
of what we’re told was
a beached whale the town blew up
thinking there was no way
they could move it
SOLSTICE in the air
conditioned bank camp kids in wet yellow t shirts shiver share towels their counselors can’t keep count too bright too cold the precise air and tiles the new atm tablets the sun’s glare
on the screens we can’t see what
we’re withdrawing touching, overdrafting
FOURTH OF JULY
the radio lied
this morning more rain all day nonstop into early evening
and after that rain indefinite
rain stretching along the clear
confident voice of weathermen rain from here
on out we stand in the front
yard looking up what rain —— what do you want to ruin the way bottle
rockets fail water in the blast
us drifting doug’s dinghy’s motor blown out later we lit a mortar
a flash the warning said it sent a small
plastic paratrooper into the night ____
fifth of july! muskrat jack
the town exterminator drinks coffee outside quick chek always covered in
dirt he kills squirrels trapped in attics his shirt says you got it, I’ll
get it ___ bye doug before we leave remember — there’s quieter
ways to kill a roach
remember how mad lauren was at us drunk 3 a.m in the kitchen shoes in hand
hunting
THE HASKELL
horses on tv race slipping
eating dirt wanting the circle other dirt rises settles offscreen what’s a haskell who’s winning
EBOLA’S COMING EARLY AUGUST laughing at candles in Walgreens shooting stars don’t smell like anything not cinnamon we read ebola’s
coming north we feel around
with new caution boil our loose change clean a man with symptoms quarantined in Bellevue horse cops outside the pharmacy window spit and get off their horses our cashier says look the city cleans itself
GROSS SWANS three gross swans in rough orbit
of each other in the bay make an isosceles or equilateral
or the third kind of triangle we both forget, a body of shapes and oil and water the gross swans don’t recommend they know they know nothing, they swim and rest and forgive unfolding
their necks at us we have so much in common, both our parents’ middle child, both our parents playing the lotto
a combined 75 years across four states, in Minnesota the Gopher 5, in Rhode Island the Keno, in New Jersey the Pick 6 the Quick Draw in New York where we met, not a dime
LABOR DAY standing in weeds and sand a man with
white hair is telling
us to come back again at the end
of October that’s nowhere
close to now he waves his hand like a branch saying come back for the last night up and down this beach balloons and lights before winter everyone comes he
says the water is cold by then but it’s worth it every year you can just
show up you can bring
whoever you want