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LEAVING
A
juvenile thing it is, to be told, changing sandals,
that
the weather cannot last, because it has.
There
has been no summer like it. My
daughter and I
prepare
for the boat. She packs a
spade
and
tells me it cannot last. Each
year the house
grows,
and grows more devices: white
wooden
summer villa raised upon stone.
From
veranda to shore
we
freight the wet heat of our bodies down.
Mosquitoes,
careless of life, sting
our
elbows and ankles. She
takes up the stern
to
watch where I row, avoiding
the
small rock, a nipple, pricking the water.
Gazing
ahead, she sees water,
a
lattice of light, and the otherside shore, forgetting
weathers
don’t last. I face my
shore:
a
pine worn red, a house disappearing
like
a well-bred smile going out one summer,
out
of a life, because it has to.
Alan
Marshfield
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