JUDGMENT TAKES A VACATION TO RAYMOND, MAINE Meghan ...

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JUDGMENT TAKES A VACATION TO RAYMOND, MAINE
Meghan Kelsey
Mesa Community College
Second Place, Poetry
where Hawthorne’s childhood home sits, adulterated
with graffiti, a pale red A...is for Asshole! shows
underneath the whitewashed boards. Perhaps a gift
from sarcastic high-schoolers. Across the inlet
is my father, sanding his latest canoe
for seven months in the detached garage,
ignoring his latest wife, I’m driving to the Mall, Dick or
Look, Dick, there’s a moose on our beach.
Pigeons quietly discuss how his house
may be more appropriate for shitting on
than that dead writer’s place down the road.
Less obvious, they say. Off the coast, a Humpback
breaks the surface with gaping mouth
as if seeing America for the first time,
dumbfounded, petrified? He doesn’t know
we’ve given him a name that reflects his decrepit
state of being. Dick? Where are you, Dick?
His wife yells again. She’s saying something about
a leaky faucet in need of a complete remodel.
Dick Nelsey doesn’t give a damn
about lost water! He likes to chop wood
so dry, splinters prick his heart.
His wife won’t remove them because she only
touches certain types of wood and the Humpback.
The Humpback could care less if he knew
the stale raisins my father cries over,
a baseball game, pigeon crap on his Lexus, an onion.
Later, he left a note, Going to store for pepperoni,

poetry: Judgment takes a Vacation to raymond, Maine
vodka, olives—need anything? As if he could’ve taken
my request for peaches, or something sweet. I would like
to know what the Hell it is that makes me think
I’m any different? I pour on just as much maple syrup
as the next guy, yet, the real doozie here
is that I still watch my father in the garage,
praying to myself, Don’t split the wood again,
Please, don’t split it.
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