"sunset at greynolds park" by Geoffrey Philp

"weeeee," my son's scream
unhinges an egret from the sea-
grape's gnarled boughs; bitter juice
rises in my throat; his mother's station
wagon enters the parking lot filled
with minivans--young couples still naive
enough to believe in love--yet i wish it was
us, swinging higher into that arc that binds me
closer than the twin poles of the swings
that span the sandbox, our space,
where our children bloodied their hands
on the jungle gym, trampled now by raccoons
awakened by the sweet stench of sapodillas;
the pups nuzzle the green mat of their mother's
fur beside broken sewer pipes that connect
the park to the bay--the poison of sudden
blooming algae coming in under an orange sky
where 747's play tag over barrier islands,
stranded in the gulf's reach toward guyana,
like our restless drive to renew ourselves;
coming in before the tug-of-war between my jeans
and his mother's skirt--my son's small arms,
like a frail spider stitching the severed space;
coming in under the fingers of mangroves
pulling the tide, the retreat of hermit crabs
under sand, pulling me closer to us, closer to we.

***

From xango music (Peepal Tree Press)