DREAM...THE FOX ON LAKE ONTARIO
Walking downhill, feet warm as dark earth is warm, warm.
Slender girl slipping,
wrapped round by slender
dress. Stepping pass
trees, over moss. Hair
blown by swollen summer
wind. Sliding through
moving pattern of sun
on leaves.
Leaves,
sleeves of
trees.
Walking to the grass,
through the grass,
lush, long grass,
dancing on ankle,
the girl stops
frightened by a fox!
If a fox should see me,
should be near me and
I take off my slender
dress. O how fast
the fox will come showing his great red
face, staring at me with pinched nose. O the fox, leaping into me. I would be
captured without my
slender dress wrapped
round my swollen breasts.
Swans are swimming on the lake. Swans
swimming on Lake Ontario.
I will not be afraid. If he were near, swans
would never swim on this
lake. I will take off my slender dress wrapped
round my slender waist,
find a hole in the lake.
The fox will not be in
the lake. I will stay with smiling swans,
swimming, swimming
across the lake.
Poem for Oneonta, New York
We sleep with trains
dreaming in Indian names.
Otsego, Otsego long lake
of night trailing snow showers of light.
In black wells of solitude through silent fixed stars we search for trains
brightened by Indian names.
Neahwa Neahwa shadows
of Indian names filled with fragrant spruce and
cooling winds of trains.
Whistling this winter long lonely trains freight trains boxcar trains
riding past avenues marked
with Indian names.
We sleep with train
dreaming in Indian names.
Susquehanna Susquehanna
long hill of light trailing this December night.
Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze, Blueline, and Halcyon Days. Four Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Review Journals, and numerous Kind of A Hurricane Press Publications have accepted her work. Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky and she has four Best of the Net nominations.