My Fellow Bread Loafers

Unlikely you’ve read or heard

yet. There are sheets, inscribed.

Hanging from the Inn’s deck.

Nailed to an Annex post.

One, across the field, waving

from Tamarack.

Painted red and black.

We Belong Here Too.

I’m guessing you can imagine

what it refers to.

Pushing back, the phrase goes,

to what a local yelled.

From his pick-up truck.

At a mother and her children.

Sitting on a blanket.

By what appears to be the cottage,

Fritz. Where families stay.

Faculty and other summer workers.

Living here. July and August.

When the mountain becomes a school

again. A Writers’ Conference.

A place to sit and talk in the storied

Barn. Walk, behind it, to the pond.

Where you won’t remember any

Keep Out signs. And just one raft

to drift on. Near the newly water-

falling dam. The newts swim

away from. Wanting to live

where they can in the winter-saving,

mud. When the ice comes.

As Frost might have said. All year round.

Liking to make up lies for us

to live by. Knowing how cruel

we can be. When what we mean

is love.

Gary Margolis, Cornwall