Price Chopper, Alex Bay

Natalli Amato

Putting through the no-wake zone
I see a mom teach her boys how to hook a worm.

Connor is reading Tony Hoagland to me.
I hear the echo of every beautiful thing that I have heard to date. 

It’s a sound that makes me believe one day
I might want to be that woman on the dock.

Even though I don’t believe in fishing.
Even though I have worn turtlenecks to wine bars in Brooklyn
where I adjusted my glasses and thought myself clever and made proclamations like,

“Having children is a manifestation of all of our most selfish impulses.”

We tie our ropes to the cleats.
Closer, now, it’s clear these boys come from different men who

Am I raising two girls? Touch the damn fish, Patrick

she hates.

---

Natalli Amato is the assistant to the editor of Rolling Stone. She is the author of the poetry collection, On a Windless Night (2019 by Ra Press). She lives in Sackets Harbor, New York.

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