Marc Swan

Cockroaches and Naked Ladies

On our last trip to Sarasota
from our home in upstate New York
into thick August heat, Uncle Bobby
in the backseat with my sister and me,
we detoured west to Chattanooga
to spend the night with Uncle Lloyd
and Aunt Daisy. Front yard overflowed
with worn-out appliances and uncut grass,
a tilted chicken coop with two cots
set up for my sister and me to sleep.
Night fell on adults chugging moonshine
Uncle Bobby bought at the local gin mill.
On the sly he slipped me a double
shot in a jelly jar that sent me wandering
along poorly lighted streets. Somehow
I made my way back to the chicken coop
that smelled like something died,
cockroaches scampering up the walls,
moonlight beaming through cob-webbed
windows on stacks of nudie magazines
piled high in the corner. As I pulled up
a threadbare quilt, my sister woke up
and whispered There is a crazy lady
in the attic in the big house where
they told me not to go.

Odyssey

I try to imagine the queen-size bed
the slight bounce when you got in
the slosh if the water got low
the cat trying to ride a wave only she could see
and when the visitor from New York
knocked at the door
after a few glasses of wine
a lingering joint
conversation of here and there
she rolled easily
onto the bed
jeans and tee shirt shed
au natural
her body flowed with the flow of the water
in slow moving eddies
over the thick wooden frame
she was young and frolicsome
ready for whatever the evening became
it was a time of chance and whimsy
a time for dance
music flowed around the room
into corners
behind doors
onto the window sills
to the door
suddenly open to the light of dawn
that did come each day
with the sweet smell
of limes, lemons, tangerines
the women changed
the weather didn’t
the music changed
the waterbed stayed the same
one decade to the next
to that time when it no longer remained

published in Sheila-na-gig 2016

 

Marc Swan lives in coastal Maine. Poems recently published in Glimpse, Nerve Cowboy,
The Atlanta Review, The Chaffin Journal, among others. His fifth collection, 
all it would take, was published in 2020 by tall-lighthouse (UK).