Page 57 - WTP Vol. XIII #1

CANOE CANOE?
The old rapscallion had a canoe Ahoy! Ahoy! me hearty!
He kept it clearly out of view
(If you were he, well, you would, too) to paddle it off it needed two
so what was his baffled wife to do? Ahoy! Ahoy! me hearty!
He left it hidden when he fled downstream into another’s bed.
She couldn’t trade it in for bread while floundering into sleep, instead Ahoy! Ahoy! me hearty!
In her garage it festered slick the sight of it near made her sick recalling the rascal and his trick Ahoy! Ahoy! me hearty!
For many a year that’s where it lay reminding her he did not stay
till she finally rallied and gave it away and that’s the end of this nautical lay Ahoy! Ahoy! me hearty!
Baird’s poems have been published in The Paris Review, The Southern Re- view, South Dakota Review, The Denver Quarterly, The Quarterly, Western Hu- manities Review, Pembroke Magazine, New Ohio Review, and other journals. Her book, In Advance of All Parting, won the White Wine Press national poetry competition, and was published by the press in 2009. Her second collection, The Solace of Islands, was published by BlazeVOX Press in 2016, and in 2019, her chapbook, Porch Watch, was published by The Foundling Press.
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