Sugar House Review: “The Bay Island Inn”

“The Bay Island Inn” (retitled “Far from the City”), published in Sugar House Review

THE BAY ISLAND INN

It is a kind of illness to be this tired. This sleepless.

Far from the city, seven ferries

lattice the harbor. I lean

into the back porch, survey

the field and countryside beyond.

The proprietor contemplates

his hound patrolling the perimeter—

she has the body of an old horse,

but takes her job seriously.

It’s getting cooler—ferries

asleep in their slips now.

I lift my glass to the fields

where armies of withering

stalks bow to the thresher.