This Last Weekend

This last weekend

–Saturday—

One day, one day only, one day in the face

Of the myth of the familiar flood of which

One meteorologist can tell you with magenta smears

Deep in the yellow and red blobs of projected rainfall

This! Magenta danger!

Turned out to be gray, windy; rain skips welcome

In the stifle, a brief watering for wilting participants.

What was I saying?

Oh, yes—Saturday...

This has become our yearly place.

With our small, local sci fi convention now defunct

Our anniversaries wear threadbare

For the lack of hotel parking lots giving onto fields

Full of bunny eyes in the twilight,

Rooms of authors and books and astronauts

And that one child in a dragon costume who cornered my husband

Who is not used to children but does like dragons, stories...

These threadbare anniversaries when we have to count years

That billow behind us like paper bags,

Skimming the lives of our families, 

Unanchored, save by anecdote...

This Saturday—

I’m getting to it. The books, the local authors

One day only, the day when the gatekeepers can stay on their shelves

In Barnes & Noble, near the puzzles and children’s toys

One day when we could poke around and he could say

“Be careful, you know you’re naïve when it comes

To hope…”

Only, this Saturday, I was there with other writers

And this was a first, a new anniversary, a book of poetry.

I was the rabbit in the field whose eyes were caught

A first-timer, a this-side-of-the-fence lurker.

Dragons in paper bags ballooning above us

As if emptiness was treasure.