Jeff Schiff is the author of That hum to go by (Mammoth Books, 2012), Mixed Diction, Burro Heart, The Rats of Patzcuaro, The Homily of Infinitude, and Anywhere in this Country. His work has appeared internationally in more than eighty periodicals, including The Alembic, Grand Street, The Ohio Review, Poet & Critic, The Louisville Review, Tendril, Pembroke Magazine, Carolina Review, Chicago Review, Hawaii Review, Southern Humanities Review, River City, Indiana Review, Willow Springs,and The Southwest Review. He has been a professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago since 1987.
I was paddling
as I’m wont
under a peek-a-boo sun
escorted
by dragon and damselflies
in the wake of barge wash
I was windblown
coursing the west side bank
quashing bow bobs
streamlining
through strewn annoyance
& local lore
past Stroud’s weekend rumpus
Stevie screech & daddy yawp
I was weaving past Demink’s
where nightly poker
bangs into flapjack breakfasts
I was beeline
humming it
catch propel recover
pulsing shirtless
leaning into fishy fug
and lake spray
into sinew and engorged biceps
and all manner of stroking hard
Jeff Schiff