Public Republic

David Cazden

Photo: opticalreflex

Like dragonflies on a pond,
two girls alight beside me
in the college diner–Sali

wears an August tan, a hair thin
choker streaming around her neck,
while the other, red headed, freckled

with leaf shadow, stares
into her book. Outside, box elders
are flinging their doors

open to monarchs and swallows;
leaves begin to wrinkle, and vessels
in the boughs begin to run dry.

Early autumn brings the scent
of textbooks–
printers ink and crinkling spines–

rising in the room. Time for pencils
to be held in teeth,
for pages to be marked and creased

for passages to be memorized
like the voices of summer friends.
So, carefully, I trace my charcoal

into the shapes of arms and legs.
I sketch a half filled cup,
a book half open.

Yet nothing is complete
this early in the year, and though
the girls gaze up, we do not speak.

Looking through our texts,
all three of us rest
on a pond of light

that is an afternoon, glancing forward
beyond one other, balancing
to keep from falling in.