William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.
On their annual New Year’s romp
the Antibes Polar Bear Club
splashes in eye-blue shallows.
Although it’s in the fifties,
a crowd in parkas and thick
Irish or Norwegian sweaters
has congealed to laugh and applaud.
You brandish your phone and snap
a dozen photos of the bathers
who wade like heron in the chill.
Will any scoop up living fish
to down with straight-necked greed?
None get wet above the waist.
The expensive shoreline curves
toward Nice, where film noir gangsters
plot their predictable robberies
and tourists mob the airport
as the holiday season ends.
The Polar Bears trundle ashore
and drape themselves in towels.
You linger on the beach to see
fireworks blossom in gaudy bursts.
The photos you send me catch
not only this drama but the backs
of the people in the front row
whose balding or tousled scalps
critique the fiercely abstract beauty
exploding above the sea.
When the dark finally resumes,
the beach will return to its stupor
and the small waves will comfort it
by erasing as many footprints
as its sudsy feelers can reach.
The Muse No Longer Amuses
From your perch on Cap d’Antibes
you watch the waters rise and fall
as the planet coughs and gargles.
A winsome but misleading photo.
I want to edit out your face
and replace it with a gorgon’s
to flash freeze your many lovers.
We deflated Earth with passions
shaped and honed like scythes. No one
saw toxins weep at the core,
killing trout and pandas, stifling
our dream lives and sculpting us
to flatter the daily grimace.
No one suspected that our breath
would be the last collective breath
the cosmic bellows would emit.
Your villa looms in pale stucco
upholstered by professional flowers.
Your telepathy catches me
mourning under thick cloud cover
that lies so heavily on me
I can’t even spit up your name.
Poetry in this post: © William Doreski
Published with the permission of William Doreski