Mike Dillon lives on Puget Sound northwest of Seattle. He is the author of four books of poetry and three books of haiku. His most recent book, “Departures,” a book of poetry and prose about the forced removal of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor was published by Unsolicited Press in April 2019. He is a previous contributor to The Galway Review.

Boys on the Dock

I’ve watched those three boys grow
into their thirteen-year old selves —
cold water swimmers, baseball players,
deft fly fishers.

Now I watch them winnow the undersized
Dungeness crabs from their pot
and execute a booted St. Vitus stomp
of shell crack and gruel spurt
until I yell stop! They do, like shot birds.

And drift back towards their old selves.
And the four of us stand there in the after-silence
as flashes and glints from the underground stream
of irresistible transgression fades.

Wish

That one poem out of all my poems
rises into a September sunset sky
to join a murder of crows rowing
toward their night roost.

And that one poem out of all of my poems
flames into a white dove bearing
the long-lost plans for the legendary chapel
still waiting to be built.