ANDREW ZAWACKI
Fermata

One of me stuttered and one
of me broke, and one of me tried
to fasten a line to one of
me untying it from me.
One of me watched a fisherman haul
a sand shark from the breaker,
while another was already years later,
returned to where a local man
baited for striper but landed a shark.
One of me sat under olivine clouds,
clouds of cerise, a courtesan sky,
and one of me sunned himself
as a child, imagining a fish-rod
turned fermata. One waved a sash
of cornflower blue, one heard
a windmill, one heard the wind,
one waved goodbye to an imminent
leftover love. And one strolled
barefoot and sunburnt across
the nickel inhibitions of afternoon,
tossing amber bottles at a smoke tree,
the gun lake, swimming toward
his family on the dock as twilight fell,
as the same boy stayed behind
to look at him swim. One believed
a father could be killed by falling rock,
and one woke up to find he'd only
dreamt, although his father was dead,
and one believed in a beautiful house
not built by any hand. One promised
nothing would break, and nothing did,
and one saw breaking everywhere
and could not say what he saw.