Lifeline | April Second Week Prompt
Coral Rock Summer Camp
sun, sand, and motel pools
I never experienced a “summer camp.”
My husband regaled me with his stories,
time spent on the shores of a lake in Canada
in canoes, around campfires, sleeping in cabins,
exploring the woods, doing crafts, shooting arrows,
jumping from docks into icy mountain fed water.
Away from family for weeks at a time.
My summer camp was Coral Rock.
The stone slab riding the aquifer of south Florida,
under the miles of silica that met the warm Gulf Stream,
stretching west to the river of the Everglades.
Away from family for only hours at a time.
Or a whole day
until the ragged sugar cane fields
silhouette against the night sky,
too dark to scour the ground for burnt cane
to suck out the last remnants of sugar.
We’d follow known sidewalks home
the stars vivid,
blanketing the sky above our heads.
Passing the neighbor with the telescope,
burnished and burled wood shining against the night sky
Invited to look,
I met the moons of Jupiter, the glow of Venus,
red Mars of my vivid imagination.
