After the Wedding Speech

(Zell Am See 06 April 2002)

My Spanish two year old and I rent a small, electric, wooden, laquered boat:
It sizzles
and parallel ducks
race our wake
in Ws.

Reaching the middle of the lake,
the Tirolean Alps spill onto the foredeck –
Agua worth pointing at
So I cut the engine into the turning sky

as three swans ride downwind
as quack quas do
spending the warmth between shadows
We chase them to feed them crackers and ask:
“Is the fatherland now where you love?
Or is it where the land declines
to sleep back to back
in chop?”

We return,
throwing pasitas overboard
One by one for our last one half hour
My son wording speed.

…

Beside a block-lettered woman’s name
The boatman rubs and chalks our finish time

legible from ten metres
I show-off –
A powerless docking, without a bump:
Manly Ferry
Perfekt.