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Roger's Waist
Roger’s waist was the linchpin
when we launched “The Rose”
off Garrison’s Cove on Bailey Island.
He let out the rope around his belt
as she slid off the trailer
at high tide. We weren’t young back
then, but barely young enough
to pull it off. I was from a river-boating
family back in Pittsburgh where
some folks cleated shell boats to docks,
and drank on them all summer. Not that we
were soberists here later in Maine,
No—there’s still case of Grey Goose in my
garage for Roger, which is an old-testament joke
about what God thinks about our plans.
Stephanie painted wine glasses on Roger’s 70th
and a broken stem among them will become an
offering to Poseidon on the rocks this fall
when we break them, and next summer’s
miracle of sea glass washed up in oath
and mystery in the natural orders of myth.
Cook’s Lobster House is also on Bailey
down Garrison’s Cove Road
and the launch ramp there looping
around the bend reminds me
me of fulcrums, linchpins
and hinges-- how they all love
a good turn, rope-let launches
and unraveling yarns, midnight clinkers.
We should all plan to croak from
the moment of birth, but we don’t--
the former having been so traumatic
that we can’t remember it.
The boats find a way of slipping in.
Copyright ©
Craig Sipe
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