Coventry Lake by Bruce Cohen

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 22, 2016   Coventry Lake   Bruce Cohen

My closest friend emigrated West, petrified To hop a jet back home; I exist in an equally isolated       East where fish are oblivious to their own Water, where one loon separates from its flock.   Wind’s kiteless. Names of friends drift away but acquaintances Remain vivid. What benefit remedy when no symptoms Equate to any known disease? I pack my anthropomorphic      Lunch: blood oranges, artichoke hearts, kidney beans, & yes I’ve digested & regurgitated my children or maybe   Vice versa. After rain, I dig for night crawlers under decomposing   Clippings. I fish to be elsewhere, the hoped for thrill & tug Of the straightening line, the bass that surface trying to spit      The hook. An acquaintance whose wife is very ill articulates In detail her ailments, positions his easel by the lake, pastels,   Water colors, his stagnant landscapes with finite rectangular skies.   In my middle life, more than ever, I need a once upon a time. I forget how easy it is to forget—can’t imagine starting      Anything new. I used to love the satisfying finality At the conclusion of movies when a giant The End   Flashed across the Big Screen. Maybe one solution:   We could all change our names every day. That loon, Nursing a mangled wing, paddles lopsided, alone,      Unnaturally close to shore, as though attached with kite string. I toss him the not quite stale bread I smuggle from my pantry   & have been thinking hard about a name for him, for this.      Unapologetically, I settle for the moment of least astonishment.            Copyright © 2016 Bruce Cohen. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “I often fish at Coventry Lake in the very early morning and I realize my casual  ‘fishing buddies’ are oddly closer to me than my real, life-long friends. I feel a sense of disparate sadness but also a feeling of longing for my old pals. However, this poignancy might simply be the self-confrontation of middle age.” —Bruce Cohen   Bruce Cohen is the author of Imminent Disappearances, Impossible Numbers & Panoramic X-Rays (New Issues Press, 2016). He teaches at the University of Connecticut and lives in Coventry, Connecticut.     Poetry by Cohen   Imminent Disappearances, Impossible Numbers & Panoramic X-Rays (New Issues Press, 2016)  "Metamorphosis" by James Richardson "Only as the Day Is Long" by Dorianne Laux "The Great Black Heron" by Denise Levertov Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038