By Thomas Page
I visited the place where I was born when I was ten-ish.
Like most people my age it is a hospital.
A place frozen in that January for my family
However, many years ago you read this poem.
It is beige-looking
With a koi pond in the middle
Water enclosed in the pond
Water seems to figure into the story
It always starts out with water
“It was raining on that day”
Like the rain I came early
I think I was due on the feast of St. Agnes
But instead I came on St. Genevieve
White wave
Seine, English Channel, Hudson Bay, St. John, Colorado, Monterey
It wasn’t raining when I came back
But the place rang of water
Monterey is adjacent to the Pacific.
The water cools the coast
With chilled beaches and deer
Who walk around the apartment’s woods
The pond’s still there with its little koi
As it was there I was there
I could’ve taken a picture of the lobby with the koi pond
And it would have looked at same back then
Like a ship preserved in water.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 