A bald headed eagle soars across the skies
taking no note of the old man in the rowboat
in the center of the river
who has come across miles and passed millions of trees
with boy wonder
his oars crossed across his lap,
the special glasses he purchased at Herman’s Army & Navy
poised on his wizened face,
He spies the eagle, plentiful, now
and as the moon obliterates the sun, as darkness falls,
he marvels whether the bird of prey will plunge into the bronze waters,
his world disoriented.
As the moon reaches totality
there is a cry from the shore,
Unseen humans raise their arms and cheer
as if this spectacle was a reclaimed rock band
When the sun resumes its defiant posture,
the sky is empty, the water placid
the eagle absent.
He beaches the boat, hitches it to the trailer,
drives the myriad roads back home.
the two minute ecstasy giving way to a tableful of empty Cervezas
at Lulu’s in the company of other drunks
where he talks on and on with his throw away cell
eloquently slurring his words as he speaks to his elderly sister in Detroit.
Nancy Cathers Demme was born in Tennessee. She received a BA in psychology from the College of New Jersey and an MLS from Drexel University. She has served as a youth services librarian for 25 years. She has attended the Prose and Poetry Getaway in Cape May for many years and taken creative writing courses at Mercer County Community College. She is working on a young adult novel, “Mrs. Foster.”
