Published!!

Yes, it's true. I'm being published. Though only in a school literary journal, BYU's is award winning and of eight poets they pick every year, I was one of them! So my surprise and a little chagrin they pick the one poem in the few I submitted that I was least confident in. Let's say I have a whole lot more now! And this is it...

Lake Houses

Five pairs of bored child feet loll on the backs of carseats
And seven voices sing:
"Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta, stolen from Africa,
Brought to America."
Eyes half closed, catching snatches of red and orange and orange tree green
Flashing through my empty head.
With a gasp and a chorus of swiveling necks
The trees give way to houses,
Glorious, castle-in-the-air houses.
Houses dreamed of by children:
Tree houses;
Stilt houses;
Pink houses;
Houses that wish they were bungalows;
Houses round;
Houses with swings and bridges;
And every one hangs over the water.
Five child faces press against the glass
As Paradies-by-the-Lake floats by.
The last thing we see is a ready and redly gleaming skiff
Anchored at a spindling dock
And one small boy with a stick and hat,
Waving.