Recent work by Bruce Robinson appears or is forthcoming in Fourth River/Tributaries, Cleaver, Panoply, Crack the Spine, and Pangyrus. Chances are, he can’t find his phone.
Rain Delay, early innings
Down four to three
it’s early innings but the ‘birds
down four to three
are bereft of their trees; let these
late spring downpours recalculate
the foul lines’ geometries:
down four to three.
Intracoastal
We expected the weather to be warm
and the fish fresh. We expected
dolphins. Or porpoises and their jokes
about manatees. Or the manatees’
jokes about “on porpoise.” We anticipated
pelicans, but they deserved it.
One Year, One of These Years
One year, one of these years,
having learned enough to smile
at other people’s children,
looking forward, I’ll feel myself old,
too old, and I won’t come down,
not to visit, despite the warmth,
despite the weather, the sea, and
the centuries resting beneath the roads
and the dolphins comfortable
in the intracoastal. I’ll have thought
of them “weaving” for far too many years,
and may at last have come to
understand that they, I mean the dolphins,
were okay with that, complacent
or perhaps they just felt justified
by whatever verb I happened to use.
I mean, they didn’t seem to
mind at all, as long as the tides
flowed warm but not much longer,
our lives as long as the water was warm.
