Poem for Thursday and Zoo Washed Ashore

I Could Let You Go
By Thomas Dooley

as if opening a crepe sail
on a raft of linden
downriver with no
glacial cut swerve down
soft like bourbon if I could
ask the waters then
to chop to shake
an apology when you cry
I feel a wet bank in me
ring dry here I'll wrap you
in the piano shawl from the upright
to your fists a spray
of dandelion and comb my last
compassion to grasp.
Goodbye, friend. Willows
dip to your lips
dew from their leafed
digits feast now
on the cold blue soup
of sky the iron from bankwater
gilts your blood I'll break
a bottle on your gunwale
and read broken
poems from the shore
as the dark river
curls back white from the cheap timber
as if letting what’s made to drift
drift.

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I did a lot of running around on Tuesday -- took Maddy to a doctor's appointment, went food shopping, visited the park, dropped Maddy off at the mall -- but it was a lot warmer than earlier in the week and that made it much nicer to be outside! We're past the solstice, I am ready for the light to come back even if it stays chilly. Of course reading the news was total hilarity this morning; sure, we should be talking about Trump's financial improprieties and appalling cabinet picks rather than scurrilous rumors that aren't even true, but who can resist all the golden puns?

I don't have a lot else to report. I folded laundry while watching the Bones season eight finale, which stretched credulity, and later the season nine premiere which was even sillier. In between, we had dinner and watched Blindspot which was tense but interesting. Of course the evening shows are having great fun with Trump, which makes the fact that they are mentioning his name tolerable. Here are photos from last fall of the National Zoo's Washed Ashore exhibit, featuring animals created from garbage retrieved from the oceans, including an appalling number of plastic bottles: