Produced by Maine Poetry Central and Dennis Camire

This week’s poem by Ted Bookey from Hallowell playfully explores how someone “from away” comes to find his place here in Maine. This summer, Moon Pie Press will release Ted’s fifth collection of poems.

POEM WITH TITLE AT BOTH ENDS

By Ted Bookey

When New York friends ask how it goes here

so far from the Empire City, I tell them

how many a morning when I grow restive

at my desk & feel the need upon me

I’ll hop into the Rabbit & ride 6/10s of a mile up

the bumpity duht road, then left onto South Road

go a mile, make a left to Rte. 17, then go 1.9 miles

to where the Mom & Pop market shares the street

with the PO, lawyer’s office & empty bakery

that’s moved its breads to a yeastier town.

I don’t linger — there’s not that much else to see, jump back

into the Rabbit, meander back the 1.9, 1.3 & 6/10th miles,

down the bumpity duht road, & I’m home at my desk again

thinking about all the spaces between Maine places

& how size comes in all sizes & that I’m here now

with the woman I love & what & where I wanted,

to be now, across the unhurried lake listening to

the gulls mewing like rusty hinges, & watching

the loons dive & bob up a distance from

where they dived, & I ease back into

the writing of the poem I will call

(excuse me while I light up & puff) :

GOING FOR CIGARETTES IN READFIELD, MAINE

Dennis Camire can be reached at denniscamire@hotmail.com