10-cane rum and I’m all
sun inside. Children
in shrink-wrap-tight
swimsuits. Cigar boats
burning by. Our aluminum’s
hoist-high in dry-dock,
tonsilled in the mouth
of the boathouse,
its conked outboard
sidesaddles the stern
like the burnt-out fan
of a disbanded boy band.

I’m one gin from oblivion.
Children, little Pol Pots
divvying up all the fun.
They get some and then
some. Rising for a quick
dip, I eye those little shits
wading in the sun-shivved
shallows.

Resurfacing I face
the strand where the Children
now stand at attention
in class-portrait stance
kneading pea gravel
in their Q-tip fists
until little Angela says,
We’ll give you a head start.

And from the tip
of the tongue-depressor
dock, I spy my high school
sweetheart turning down
the lakebed so I can pull
the bedrock over my head
before they find the time
to turn to teenagers.

Jeramy Dodds won the 2009 Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and made the 2009 Griffin Prize short list for his debut collection, Crabwise to the Hounds.