Sarah Green
Jake In The Hospital

Jake, the way some person left smooth stones

arranged like checkers in a boxed tray, the tray

on a stump in rain outside the Whidbey island coffee shop...

we have a few options, an option is a playful tree

inviting game players, an option’s a person interrupted

in the middle, an option’s an artist wanting the stones to be

untouched, but the last’s unlikely, the stones so palm-able,

rain making obvious a range of grey, like the island’s clouds

I always would have pictured one plain swathe of hidden sun

over the water, but the clouds rolled, Jake, were distinct from

each other, no matter how it rained, the kelp like alien rope,

sandwiches and cameras in the car, I missed the sun like crazy

but the clouds weren’t as bad as I have always thought, if you

get up high enough, that’s the part I didn’t know, I need

someone to get down on his knees and hoist me up, and then

I can bear anything, the loneliness of the vacant game, the face

of a sad friend watching me put on my hat, the hat so colorful

it matched no part of Washington, except the day after I left,

the sun came out, I heard, I heard my hat matched the future.