A Walk Around the Pond

American Poetry Review, The, Jan/Feb 2004 by Griffin, Sheila

I never held an egg!

I threw it away.

Wait, that's crazy!

Don't go-I held it. I held it. I never

threw it away. No, I'll tell

the truth. Beginnings slipped from me.

What part couldn't I touch? I heard

the sun, heavy on the horizon, crackle,

a thin noise, a split second dimension, a

choice between one wrong and another. A fellow walker

nodded her head or said excuse me, absolved herself.

I know it sounds crazy but

I was suspended in time. I was

witness to a sky and I belonged. I heard

actual footsteps-steady, rhythmic

gravel crunching-behind me. When I turned, it was only

dry leaves blowing across the path

in thick orange light. So you see,

I am dying. I knew it. And this

is what it's like, a walk after dinner,

in plain view, with ducks on the water, as peaceful

as if there were no ducks on earth at all.

SHEILA GRIFFIN teaches composition at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. She's had poems published most recently in Chrysanthemum, Poetry Depth Quarterly, and Hummingbird.