I take in a deep breath,
And I begin choking with joy.
“I smell White Lake”
I say
I smell Mickey mouse pancakes.
I feel sand
all the way up my ankles
And there are playing cards sticking to
A maple syrup drop left behind
On the table.
My mother replies,
“Sweetie, that is the smell of mildew.”
This is kind of a bitter sweet poem. It’s a childhood memory of spending time at the lake, but it also shows how memory can be distorted. The speaker uses specific detail to create an atmosphere of happy memories, a beach, a special breakfast children like, card games. But then the words, “choking” and the fact that the mother is smelling mildew gives the feeling that there is more to this memory than the good things the speaker remembers, or chooses to remember about white lake.
I really like poems like this, small ambiguous scenes, part rhetoric, part narrative, part image. The first line seems disconnected from what comes after it, but I'm somehow catapulted
ReplyDeleteinto a short history of self and place. These small quotidian details could be the cause of the joy, but they don't have to be. The last couplet is very consoling--one might say sweet (and funny). very subtle, minimal. "I smell White Lake," / I say." Punctuation consistently.