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Gary Margolis is the author of the poetry collection Museum of Islands. He was a former Professor of English at Middlebury College in Vermont.

If You Lived Here, You’d Be Here Now

Gary Margolis

You rise earlier than I’d ever
dream of doing.
Head down to the dock’s ropes.

Its green cages. Its diesel
smoke.
Every minute’s a moment

to leave.
Take a look out
to the swelling sea.

See the fog inside
a gull’s eyes.
Sun starting to burn off

its wings.
Thinking of things,
a poem isn’t meant

to confuse you.
Until it does.
The grind of an engine

sputtering
to start.
A tide going out further

than it’s ever been.
Whatever that fish isn’t
thinking,

let it be you.
One morning
in Maine. The book

Robert McCloskey wrote
for children. Anyone
at the beginning

or end of life.
“Blueberries for Sal”.
And the Homer Price stories

of too many donuts.
String in a ball
as big as a town,

rolling down Main Street.
All his dog-eared books
you can take with you.

Rising this early.
Heading to the dock.
With your lunch pail

and two-way radio.
With enough to eat
and read, a ball game

to listen to.
In your case
from Fenway Park.

Where the wind
blows in from the harbor.
Keeping a home run

from being
a home run.
Where the smell

of beer and fish
is strong enough
to believe

in yourself.
And the fog’s
as thick as anything

you can compare it to.
Without turning over,
kicking off

your blanket.
Without dreaming
what’s out there.

To be caught
and raised. Kept
and thrown back.

Released
from everything,
the teachers say,

you want to keep,
bring home.
Like a blue buoy

trapped
inside the story
of seaweed and rocks.

The waves rolling in,
all of them,
to take it back.

— Gary Margolis

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