Your septic tank has exploded,
your books tumbled from their shelves.
Rather than reshelf, you’ll sell
your house and move to Rhode Island
where the big tame bay flatters
islands gone shapeless and adrift
and ruined old mill cities sigh
as the sea breeze warps from the Sound.
You claim you’ll commute from there,
but after a week of driving
a hundred miles each way you’ll close
your textbooks and retire. You lack
the will to heal the hole in the soil
where your septic tank burst in shame.
No use trying to read the books
splayed open on the floor. You shovel
your clothes into plastic bags, scoop
cosmetics, shampoo, and toothpaste
into another bag and slam
yourself into your pickup truck
and cry. Behind your house the river
apologizes with the song
of an oriole. Maybe the bank
will lend the money to replace
the septic system. Your neighbor,
a mountain of earnest goodwill,
could help sort and reshelf the books.
Rhode Island’s too small and shy
to accommodate your misery—
the bay too flat and historical,
the towns on Long Island Sound
obsessed with sand worms and tides.
And your clothes, rumpled in bags,
have wrinkled too badly to wear
among strangers. So you might as well
stay home and watch the orioles
twitter about their swinging nest,
oblivious to the stink you’ve loosed
on the innocence of the world.
—
William Doreski teaches at Keene State College in New Hampshire. His most recent collection of poetry is Waiting for the Angel (2009). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, and Natural Bridge.
