The foolishness of all this living!
Of all of those white things collecting on the lawn;
clover and picket moss, fluttering moths,
a side-belly trout! just caught! afraid
of being noticed and thrown back
into the stream or cleaned for dinner
it does a little gentle exercise—a few
casual fin-lifts. He is a white trout on the lawn.
I am a white towel on the lawn.
I am strewn beside berries.
I am the honorable.
I am the lighted-upon.
I am getting away with this foolishness of loving.
I’ve become something to collect—ball caps blown
from boater’s heads, little-necks dug from deep below
the meeting of sand and water.
Gilded eggs. Gilded eggs. Reasons
to keep on being something like a fool.
Betsy Wheeler is the author of the poetry collection Loud Dreaming in a Quiet Room, and the poetry chapbooks Start Here, and Mental Detours. She earned her MFA in poetry at The Ohio State University in 2005, and held the Stadler Fellowship at Bucknell University from 2005-2007. Her poems have appeared in many publications including The Journal, Bat City Review, Better, MiPoesias, Forklift Ohio, and Octopus. Managing Director of the Juniper Summer Writing Institute, she lives with her wife and their daughter in Northampton, MA.