Poetry

Independent Day | Maine Street | Maine Sonnets by Edwin Denby

---

Independent Day

This poem was first published in New York Hello! (1990, Ommation Press), a book of photographs by Rudy Burckhardt and poems by Vincent Katz.

Walking through a field in the rain with a blue umbrella, death

is a flash, sometimes you can relax, with ones you love

or seeing friends after a long time, finally all the history

and things you read about, art, become real, part of you,

and it’s nice to find them in others too: July 4th at the Brooks Fair

in Brooks, Maine, makes me think of Jefferson, who was a great writer

blond voluptua in red terry shorts:

		Rudy pumps her from the hip, moves me out of the way of his shot

			         like sex, he goes back for more, pressing

		        the button and shooting in a steady rhythm, hands round

   his instrument,

		from the crotch: later he admits to being turned on

			(in a calm, old-worldly way)

			        then six cops converge on us, ask Rudy

		“You haven’t been bothering any of the young ladies, have you?”

		“I don’t think so.  No,” Rudy says, truthfully



								  driving in the car

through beautiful Thorndike and wide sunset fields, Montville, Searsmont

Tammy Wynette on the radio: the kind of song that makes you cry

or else it makes you horny --

						 the way Rudy talks he makes you think

he could be a bum or a Herodotus

						     -- we come up a long hill

to where Rudy painted a painting once: two tall trees fencing

a tar road going uphill and disappearing: the road

becomes clear now, the trees dark and foreboding like cypresses,

the road curving a little, stretching upwards, then disappearing

7/5/84