My poem “Walnut Street” was selected in a contest held by the Philadelphia Inquirer to appear on the newspaper’s website for National Poetry Month. Click here to visit and read other poems including Luke Stromberg’s “Friends Southwest Burial Ground.”

I dodge down the crowded July street,
Breathing garbage and humid perfume.
The stifling block is wild at noon.
Stores prop their doors open to lure in buyers.
Banks of icy air waft out in columns,
And I cross through one and nearly shiver.
 
As I delve once again into warmth,
I remember swimming in cedar lakes
That flashed like dirty tin in summer,
Buoyed in greasy tea-stained water.
We kicked to keep afloat near the adults,
Then raced past the roped orange markers.
 
The lifeguard’s whistle pierced our splashes.
Undercurrents from freezing springs gushed
On our bellies, then sun-kettled eddies, then cold,
Paddling and lunging for those small islands
That seemed to recede with each breathless lash
Of our arms through the churned, cloudy water.

Photograph by Niamh O’Connell, 2009