Nancy Pagh

Anchored

When I was small, five or four, we anchored for lunch in the bay at Allan Island. I have no story, just associations. Cool habitat beneath my jogging feet. Clay embankment. Small pots we made in school that year. How pain pins down a pleasure forever.

shafts of light pierce
deep forest canopy
a thrush trills
higher higher higher

When mama tells the story, the bumblebee is fat and slow and she is running: “No!” It’s continuous stop-motion, how my chin rubs the tickle, how I howl. How she scoops mud in her hand without pausing on a long journey across the beach toward my throat.

partly buried
an anchor holds
partly sunk
a cement vessel travels