Another Day in Key West
by Jack Ridl
Our houseboat is a little houseboat.
Some here are two stories, three
bedrooms, a roof-top patio garden,
the view taking the eye across
the bight out over the cypress
and onto the Gulf where the tarpon
slow dance and the fishing boats
settle in, lines tossed or dropped.
Those on vacation can rent a charter
and hope to take home a photograph
of their catch, the tough scaled fish,
having fought and given in, now hanging
alongside the smiles. Today again
the clouds will pass over us,
the sun will bring sliding light
across the water, time will bring
its illusion to carve its way
into our ephemeral cells,
and we will sit again on our deck,
the wind chime alchemizing the breeze.
Jack Ridl’s most recent poetry collection, Practicing to Walk Like a Heron, received the Gold Medal from Indie/Foreword Reviews. Broken Symmetry won the best collection award from The Society of Midland Authors. Losing Season was named one of the 10 best sports books of the year. His joy, too, he says, is that more than 85 of his students are now publishing. Two years ago, two of them won major first book awards.