by Paul Hostovsky
Expensive delicate boat
with a hundred chances on board
floating above the drowned brown
pennies with their one chance each
piled on top of each other
on the abject bottom.
It wavers, shivers, turns
over and the green
president goes under and in
god we trust and all that fancy
acanthus leaf amounting to a wish
that was taken for granted. But wasn’t.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The phonetic quality of this poem is very demonstrable of its subject: Like a coin quavering and shimmying on it’s way down to the “abject bottom.” I really enjoyed it and felt it tug on my breath as each lined passed. Deceptively simple.
I go back to Wellfleet. Summer of 1953 (or so). Damp, foggy, rainy week–my parents were going crazy with the four of us (6, 4, 3, 1 in age). So we went to the beach in the rain. On the surf side. Where I spent hours collecting pebbles–emerald green, lapis blue, garnet, citrine, peridot, and so forth. My jewels. I couldn’t wait to show my friends at home my treasure, carefully stashed, hidden away, until I got back to Vermont. Where the pebbles, now dry, now earthbound, had dulled to a nondescript muddy brown. I tried putting them in water, to revive them. Nada. I made up a story about the homesick pebbles, gradually fading away. One good thing: The piece of green sea glass I found that day didn’t let me down. Until I read your poem, I had forgotten the pebbles.
Thanks