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Winter/Spring 2016

Proposals on East Lake

 

by George Bishop

 

Pink and baby blue splashed lake-sky, the air
so still you could hear gators getting final
 

instructions before heading out of their holes
for a half moon evening of prehistoric stalking
 

and flash-snaps too quick for the eye—light
and dark are all that play by the rules out on 
 

East Lake, anywhere, actually, this far south. 
The whole peninsula hatches more change 
 

than marriage on a good night, sun-drenched,
blistering blacktop burning off so much rain …
 

like the blizzard of…
                                 up north where home fires
 

twist stories and crack their whips at disbelief.
Sure is pretty, though—going down, falling 
 

off, coming up somewhere else. Like marriage
on a bad day, you have to know how to read
 

the water and swim against the stars. Edges
are always calling out when the air is still as…

 

[More poems by George Bishop]

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