"On the Pontoon,"
by William Reichard, from How To.
© Mid-List Press.
Reprinted with permission.


Summer on a borrowed pontoon,
drifting on a northern lake
with my brother, my sisters;
scent of cigarettes and beer,
stubs snuffed out
in almost-empty cans.
I feel the pattern of the iron floor
press into my back
like a template;
feel my panic rising
at the thought
that I am thirty-four
and have no job;
that the sky above us
shines just as blue
on some petit bourgeois
suburban heaven
but none of us here
could ever afford
those house payments.
The dirty old dog
my brother named Sam
barks and leaps into the lake,
the clear lake, and all around
the pontoon the water clouds.
Andy coaxes the dog on board.
In the lake, the clouds begin to calm.
There is a pattern to everything,
the way we rise, we fall;
the way I left the factories
seeking an education and left
the academy degreed
and still seeking.
The summer air soft.
Burnt tobacco
lingers around us
in fiery clouds.
When the water finally
settles, we all drift back
where we belong.