SHIPS

There was that one year
when I lived near deep
water, when I heard 
the ocean-going ships
at night, gliding
along the Coos River
past my child-small bed,
past the point of land
across my street
where old Mrs. Tower
and her gardener, Charlie,
his white hair leafing
up in the salty breeze,
would discuss hibiscus.

Sometimes Charlie would lean
over the gate and hand
me a twig doll, her skirt
made from a red
flower. Once Mrs. Tower
invited me in, held 
my hand, walked with me
along her tidy, blooming
footpaths so I could see the sun-
chopped water far to the west,
and peer over the thick stone wall,
measure with my own eyes 
the long drop
to the sharp black rocks
littered with oyster shells,
their pearls, if they had ever existed,
been spun luminous as stories 
in their closed, moist dark,
now long gone.

Leslie Schultz (Northfield, Minnesota; http://www.winonamedia.net) has six collections of poetry; of these, Geranium Lake: Poems on Art and Art-Making is her most recent. Her poetry has appeared widely, in such journals as Poet Lore, Mezzo Cammin, Midwest Quarterly, Able Muse, Naugatuck River Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Pensive, MockingHeart Review. and Blue Unicorn. Twice nominated for Pushcart prizes, she serves as a judge for the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. In addition to poems, she publishes photographs, essays, and fiction; makes quilts and soups; and happily mucks about in a garden plagued by shade, rabbits, and walnut trees.