The Reservation

Vincent Zompa

A sinkhole chewed a canal through
the Florida bush.In a can the mood-war was setting,
digging in irony packs.Under the Seminole rub,
lawn chairs were crackling.Each pool was a love organ,
the collected blue gales of, then all the tiny
witnesses grew as they swum the air,collecting hair samples and car alarms
in the pink-palmed sundown.Where our blues were shorn,
lawns buzzed with immigrants,
and couples in stretched fabric walked.We were now the old folks, our fears
and loss of balance when we closedour eyes in the shower. We remembered
long-dead cats bulging in an old campground,a shed’s greasy tools and tangle of fishing gear.
We feared the pedicures we paid forand the insect-free islands our lush winters
of heaven preserved.

Feature Date

Series

Selected By

Share This Poem

Print This Poem

Vincent Zompa is the author of Heard Animal (Dusie, 2014), Moonraker (Dusie, 2011), The Recife Plectrum (Dusie, 2010) and Jacket of the Straits (New Michigan Press, 2007). His poems have most recently appeared in BOMB Magazine and Verse, where he was the 2016 winner of the Tomas Salamun Prize.

Verse

Volume 34

Richmond, Virginia

Editors: Brian Henry, Andrew Zawacki

Founded in Oxford, England in 1984, Verse is an international journal that publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art. The print edition publishes portfolios of 20-40 pages, while the Verse site publishes book reviews and individual poems.

Poetry Daily Depends on You

With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.