Glendale Lake
Glendale Lake
Summer
neck deep on my birthday
drowning has always been too easy
no lifeguard on duty
cold currents from the depths
stirred up by distant motorboats
can feel every inch of skin
underneath my clothes
for the next three days
Autumn
past-peak color on the hillsides
dogs rooting through leaves
hoping to surprise a chipmunk
the promise of winter
could separate us
from our sacred place
a plague of grackles wait in the trees
Winter
out on the jetty
ice creaks with every gust
one could believe
the whole world is flat and white
as if none of us were ever here
Spring
the signs are everywhere
the wet world survived winter
life in all its mindless surplus
bent on resurrection
a collision course with death
creating a green and grey
temporary heaven
Matthew Ussia is director of Duquesne University’s First Year Writing Program. His first book, The Red Glass Cat, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2021.
