Poem: [Picknicking at Long Island Sound]

In honor of being on the East Coast I am posting this poem for your (immense) enjoyment.

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[Picnicking at Long Island Sound]

Picnicking at Long Island Sound,
I feel married to Cristóbal Colón -
how you gesture wildly and kiss
like you’re eating the mild flesh
of a peach. I believe you are a great-
grandson of his. The very Spanish
of your mustache. The very purple
in the sunlight of your mustache.
And I am your conquest, a pale
redheaded pheasant perched
atop your shoulder. My feather
stuck to the khaki of your gaucho
hat. You told me once
Long Island Sound is a huge vat
of maple sap collected on a winter day.
It is a stored feeling of drowning
in heavy batter, of being pressed in a waffle iron.
The grandson of Cristóbal Colón,
I say, does not get made into breakfast
for hungry gulls and unleashed dogs.
I smooth the sunscreen on the brown
Spanish of your shoulders, the bronze
outlines of your grandfather’s bones.
Tell me the story, I say, of your conquistador
grandfather. Of the rape and pillage, but mostly
of the pale red pheasant
he kept in a cage by his bed.