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Wetland Walking // Marie Kilroy

1.

The Chesapeake is a silver sliver from high above
but on land it is a briny water-vein,
eastern-lying but southern-bound.

Geese, foxes, frogs,
seagulls, ducks and even swans
scatter about and claim their own
air space, crawl-through, oak-knot or pond.

My grandmother's house,
all white and clean wood lines,
stands solid on a thin edge between
the land and water.

2.

She and I walk and talk
through all types of weather.
But on sunny days
we pad along the border of
cattails and pebble-covered sand
and absorb the rays, eyes raised skyward.

Our path leads to a grey, splintered dock.
It rests like a long arm stretched into hazel water,
opaque and current-stirred,
and holds in its palm a seat-worn bench.

3.

Smile-barren days seem to multiple.
I dread the end of these visits
and wish faded memories,
like a film long exposed to air,
could instead be bottled, stored and displayed
in the globes behind my eyes,
brackish and salt-stinging.