What You Fail to See From Your Kitchen Window
by Carol Parris Krauss
I have spoken of Deltaville. How we cast off our kayaks,
wiggled into the Cheseapeake like water worms. Sotted Ssssses
as we balanced to right our craft, to take purchase.
Soon slicing the water as we traversed down a nooked cove.
Then lifting our oars and letting only the wind and kelpies steer us
past a Ring-billed gull, a red hound sunning at the frayed blue-gray edge.
You may have spied us from your ramshackle dock
or cottage porch. Wondered what fools would trust the back Bay
to nothing but the wind. Oars out, mother and daughter drifting.
To you who pruned your coneflowers, unfolded from weeding
to wave to us frantically, we knew what we were doing. A pair
of mountain women curled up in kayaks, looking at the sun
spit-shining the water. Worshiping your slice of the Chesapeake Bay.
Relishing all you fail to see from your kitchen window.
Carol Parris Krauss (she/her) enjoys using place as a vehicle for a variety of emotions. Love. Loss. Laughter. Her poems are slow, visual, and new Southern. Her work can be found in a variety of online and print journals such as The South Carolina Review, storySouth, and Broadkill Review. She was honored to be recognized as a Best New Poet by the University of Virginia Press. In 2021, she won the Eastern Shore Writers Association Crossroads Contest. Carol was born in SC and graduated from Clemson University. She currently lives in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. She can be found on Twitter @CarolKrauss3.
