At Bailey's Mistake

smokeshed
bailey's mistake
trescott, maine

At Bailey’s Mistake

Who can say which sadness when takes over,

becomes rudder?

Who can name for another what moors, what charts the date?

                                                                                Deborah Digges                               

                                                                                Nursing the Hamster

If you stand back far

enough, the second rung

on the ladder is a trick

of the posts.  Holding to

what they’ve held to they

are the last of a once

was fence, a stronghold

some long gone swinging

door may have rested on.

Moss lost in spots and shingle

grey, countless times a hand

hadto’ve laid on the round-

ed head of one, then maybe

the other, and took it all

in, whatever time of day

or tide, whatever thick-

of-fog or wisp, the way it

is with ghosts that may

float alone in the old debris

in the smokeshed that makes

this post-ladder’s second

rung.  See it?  Just so, the window

and doors are their own a

snow beaten salt beaten

sanctuary.  It’s maybe if you make

it work for you, a priory

soaked in its own smoke.

The millions of fish bodies

hung throat and gill staring

up to the rafters in the calm

way of such smoke, as though
to God.  And don’t you want to

imagine it still happens like that
in there at night, the straight-up

flight of pliable flesh rendering

itself out to a tight

and preservable delight?

Right?  It’s enduring now and old

in a way gravestones are old,

you know the ones the town’s

the most stoic of: a founder

maybe, a first white baby, a couple
of men gone down with their ship

not far from where this shed

will be built, will be worked

in for years, by whole generations

of families, will be walked away

from, but not entirely, because

there’s always looking back,

there’s always that moss covered

ladder that only our eyes

can climb safely, and the crowd

of goldenrod blossoms, and, out

of the frame, but there I assure

you, the rugosa lined road, opening

their mouths like taps horns, some

wide some gone to hip some shut

in their bud waiting for rain

to be rung from their sisters

drop, drop, don’t walk away

till you see it lined up: see:

drop, drop.  Stop.  Pause…it’s

optical.  It’s caught.   It’s soft

as the memory of a friend

walking ahead, not far, but just

enough in the fog to be almost

gone, almost, but not.  See? 

Yes, yes.  See.