seasoned

by R Hamilton

Autumn limps homeward 

with only one sandal, having lost 

the other skinny-dipping with 

Summer and the girls down 

at the mill pond where some kid 

rigged a dream from a tree on a rope 

for us to swing out wide over the waves 

and fling ourselves at the troughs, yelling 

“Lookatme!” as loud as we can, 

startling egrets into similarly unloosed flight 

while our world slowly tilts 

further away from the dozing sun, 

scattering shoes and underpants and 

the gap-toothed laughter of blithe innocence 

in the tall grasses as it goes. 

R Hamilton’s poetry first appeared in their 1970 high school literary magazine,  followed by a fifty-year backstage career in performing arts ending with retirement and  pandemic. Their next “published” piece was included in City Lights Theater’s 2020  Halloween podcast, an unintentionally round number of years and/or decades. Since  then, Hamilton’s work has been included in collections by Caesura, Oprelle Press, and Boats Against the Current.