Narrow Corner, Carpinteria Beach

White house, aqua shutters.
There Aunt Selena wears a flowered rayon dress,
a field of blooms swaying as she walks.
There the looming portrait of her sure-eyed father
stares out at the room
steering his sailing boat
diagonally to Catalina Island.
Mustached, in a brimmed straw hat,
turning the wooden wheel,
he muscles the family along.

There Uncle Wilfred
sits in his chair fingering
his black bolo tie, absently staring
out the window at the hibiscus bushes.
There sunny rain falls on ice plant
just beginning to flower.
There Uncle Wilfred’s eyebrows move up
asking lunch?
Aunt Selena nods yes, her smile
reaching her eyes
and lasting through the egg salad,
pumpernickel bread, oatmeal cookies.
Friday nights at the movies
stars twinkling
in the blue domed ceiling.

When Uncle Wilfred dies
I wonder what to make of the world.
Ice plant still blooms. Sunny rain
still falls on it. The sure-eyed man
still pilots his ghost boat.
Pink hibiscus remains
beyond the window, twinkling stars
still in the ceiling and sky.
I try to restore Aunt Selena’s smile
to her eyes
but it stays stubbornly on her mouth.
I make myself narrow as I tilt tight
around and about and through,
she and I each tacking
close to the wind.

Susan Eyre Coppock is a retired French teacher. She published Cardinal Days: A Coming-of-Age Memoir in 2016. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review, Free State Review, The Healing Muse, Constellations, and Juxtaprose.