At the Boathouse
Taylor Cornelius
Waiting in the crescent
of an afternoon,
I return to my latent admiration.
There is so much canny light
the mayflies look miraculous
in concentric swarms over
the murk. A swan’s breast
breaks the water, her feet obscured
by turbid swill. I click my fingers
at a loose dog to scare him
off the shore, and remember
you wry and amazed
on a street corner in Chelsea,
the docklands brick behind you,
a rough catch in your voice
on a too-cold day.
What else is there in love?
I untangle a fishing line,
sweep the dock for dropped hooks.
The dog is already in another
rabbitless thicket,
scouring the ground
in lovesick reverie.
Taylor Cornelius is a poet, artist, and writer from Denver, Colorado. She is the recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets prize at Kenyon College, and a former Kenyon Review fellow. A recent graduate of New York University’s MFA program in poetry, she currently lives in Brooklyn.