whatcom chief gone for two weeks of annual maintenance
we ride the ’squito, a 50 passenger foot ferry
out of our car shells, we meet, chatter on the crossing
hard wind, rain—december weather someone complains
the ’squito bounces at the dock, the old man next to me
says if he didn’t have to feed his dog, he would have stayed
on the mainland, rented a hotel room.
do you ever get used to this weather —
how long have you been on the island?
he thinks, calculating.
over 70 years, and hell no.
*Copyright 2010 by Luther Allen. This poem appears in The View from Lummi Island.
. . . . .
photo
other mind press 