JUST VISITING
and thinking of Whitman
I love looking downriver—under
the last two bridges before the harbour
toward the lady and where the ferry
still crosses from island to island—
and imagining what you’d make of
what we’ve made of the busy docks
of your Brooklyn, the rhythms of so
many masts coming in and going out
replaced by these glassy monstrosities,
wart-like clear to the water’s edge.
Though I’ve a friend who swam
around the lesser island, another who
rowed around the greater one, I am
just now content with loafing right
where I am on this rent stabilized
couch in a Williamsburg high-rise,
my soul reclined doglike beside me
and like me taking in the view of two
cities waking—the cat in the window
apparently loving it too, an early train
on the bridge behind us grumbling
its high way above the hasting current.
Author’s Bio
Brad Davis’ new collection is Trespassing on the Mount of Olives (Cascade, 2021). Having earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, he has gone on to teach creative writing in two boarding schools and two colleges. Currently living in Connecticut in the US, he hopes to return one day to his first home in Kelowna, BC.
