Magis
(Watch Hill, Rhode Island)
--for my father

The Ocean House Hotel
looks too big for the hill
it's been sitting on
for the past one-hundred years,
but lets the roof sag
like the spine of an old
plow horse, so it can squeeze
in between July and August.

On the patio, I take a seat,
order a drink from a waitress
with icing on her nose and watch
a ferry drag
a long white ribbon out
to Block Island, a piece
of land that looks
shorter than my arm
but with a bit more muscle.

I have a great view
of the coast, spreading
its shoreline open like a lover
the ocean can't seem
to get enough of.
Sailboats are pushovers
for wind and the Montauk
lighthouse keeps blinking
with something caught
in its beam.

Years later, the waitress
brings over my drink
that's strong but still weaker
than the sun. As I take
another sip I see my father
walk up from the beach
where umbrellas grow like
mushrooms in the sand.

He's leaning on his cane
the way all of us
have leaned on him for years.

“Magis” from Spare Change by Kevin Pilkington, La Jolla Poets Press, 1997 and represented by permission of the author.

Kevin Pilkington is a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College and teaches in the graduate department at Manhattanville College. The author of five collections, he is winner of the La Jolla Poets Press National Book Award (for Spare Change) and the Ledge Poetry Prize. Recent publications include a book, Ready to Eat the Sky (River City Publishing) selected by Andrew Hudgins, and a chapbook, St. Andrew's Head (Camber Press). His poetry has appeared in many anthologies and magazines, including Poetry, Ploughshares, Iowa Review, Boston Review, and Hayden's Ferry.