Text of the poem is below.
Emily Vieweg, MFA, is a poet and playwright originally from St. Louis, Missouri. Her work has been published in Foliate Oak, The Voices Project, Red Weather Literary Magazine, Soundings Review, Art Young’s Good Morning, The Basil O’Flaherty Feminist Voices and more.
More about Emily here.
and her new book here.
This discussion is a project of FM Arts, a radio series of profiles, performances, and discussions with artists in the Fargo-Moorhead area funded by The Arts Partnership with support from the Cities of Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo.
The First Friday in June
The moment when you leave your office and head to lunch
in the misty rain, you blink
and sniff the North Dakota air, and you are in
grandma’s backyard in Massachusetts,
running around the pool, chasing your sister, the bunnies,
and the cousins you see
once a year. The rumble
of the a/c unit in the next building is really
the pool filter in Grandpa’s shed where we change –
girls, then boys – into our swimsuits
for one final dip in the pool
before we leave for home tomorrow at 5am.
Mom wants us packed before dinner;
we just want to play one more time –
one more slide in the deep end,
one more water somersault in the shallow end,
one more of my sister’s magic jumps off the diving board –
(I never figured out how to jump in without getting my head wet.)
You arrive at your building, scan your ID, and awaken
to the fact that you’re not twelve anymore,
and the world is not Grandma’s backyard.
© Emily Vieweg 2020
