Returning
by Adam Tavel
Because they are not made
for nursing home nightstands or mothballed attics
I stand on Assateague Island chucking
your mother’s shells back to the Atlantic
like the boy who twists a thin branch and breaks it,
desperate to glue its splintered bark with sap.
Lifeguard whistling from his throne, water
puckering over conchs bigger than catcher’s mitts,
I pitch by the half-dozen now,
a sharp edge slicing my finger on the final hurl.
My hand stings in sea-salt;
waves lap the rolled cuff of my shorts.
What would she say of this rushed mess
if she had breath, her memories drifting into sand?
And later, when I scour our glove box for band-aids
I try to ignore the pale girl bowed in distant foam,
shells washing back
like so many miracles at her feet.
________________________
Adam Tavel’s poetry has appeared in Ariel, Perigee, and Poet Lore,
among others. He teaches English at Wor-Wic Community College
and serves as the poetry editor of Conte, an online journal of narrative
writing. Currently he is an MFA candidate at Vermont College.
On “Returning”:
Since “Returning” grew out of a real personal experience (I actually
heaved those shells), my main impulse was to write a simple, organic
elegy free of emotional and rhetorical clutter. At a certain point it
took the form of unrhymed free-verse couplets, which helped guide
the speaker’s rhythm, pacing, and sense of futility. Despite several
revisions, the final image remained the same; it seemed to strike the
perfect balance between action and reaction, power and powerless-
ness that I wanted to achieve, and ultimately unified the rest of the
poem.
◄ Previous Page Apple Valley Review, Spring 2007 Next page ►
Because they are not made
for nursing home nightstands or mothballed attics
I stand on Assateague Island chucking
your mother’s shells back to the Atlantic
like the boy who twists a thin branch and breaks it,
desperate to glue its splintered bark with sap.
Lifeguard whistling from his throne, water
puckering over conchs bigger than catcher’s mitts,
I pitch by the half-dozen now,
a sharp edge slicing my finger on the final hurl.
My hand stings in sea-salt;
waves lap the rolled cuff of my shorts.
What would she say of this rushed mess
if she had breath, her memories drifting into sand?
And later, when I scour our glove box for band-aids
I try to ignore the pale girl bowed in distant foam,
shells washing back
like so many miracles at her feet.
________________________
Adam Tavel’s poetry has appeared in Ariel, Perigee, and Poet Lore,
among others. He teaches English at Wor-Wic Community College
and serves as the poetry editor of Conte, an online journal of narrative
writing. Currently he is an MFA candidate at Vermont College.
On “Returning”:
Since “Returning” grew out of a real personal experience (I actually
heaved those shells), my main impulse was to write a simple, organic
elegy free of emotional and rhetorical clutter. At a certain point it
took the form of unrhymed free-verse couplets, which helped guide
the speaker’s rhythm, pacing, and sense of futility. Despite several
revisions, the final image remained the same; it seemed to strike the
perfect balance between action and reaction, power and powerless-
ness that I wanted to achieve, and ultimately unified the rest of the
poem.
◄ Previous Page Apple Valley Review, Spring 2007 Next page ►
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Apple Valley Review:
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 2, Number 1
(Spring 2007)
Copyright © 2007
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 2, Number 1
(Spring 2007)
Copyright © 2007
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
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