By Suzanne Carey

Featured Image: Jetty and Wharf at Trouville by Eugène Boudin, 1863
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Teen boys shoot hoops
a few yards from my open door.
The night’s nearly moonless,
yet they persist,
thunka-thunka of ball on blacktop
driving me to the verge of complaint,
like some old woman caught
in a numbing net of loneliness,
the old woman I suddenly am.

Today, the man I love told me
how he happened to leave Michigan
and mused how different
his life would have been if he’d stayed—
no degrees;
running a string of burger stops
or clocking in as a machinist like his dad;
never meeting his wife—

this last said with a shaky smile,
like someone who, by turning back
to retrieve a forgotten umbrella,
dodged death, and I realize finding her
is something he will never regret.
No matter how much he loves me
or how many cracks in his soul I caulk,
she is the rock he’s built his life on.

Summer fades like worn denim,
yellowing leaves grow frail.
I close my door.
Outside the boys ceaselessly aim
at shadowy baskets
that cannot hold a thing.

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Suzanne Carey is a poet, photographer, and artist. Her poems and short prose have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the United States and abroad. Her chapbook, George Washington Is Dead, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2012. Her visual art has been exhibited in juried competitions in northern California and is in private collections throughout the country. Born in San Francisco, she earned BA and MBA degrees from Stanford University, where she worked as a financial manager for twenty-nine years.

Originally appeared in NOR 17