Saturday 5 May 2018

2 Poems by Scott Davidson

Camouflage

The secret to not being seen
isn’t disappearing from sight.

Day to day, being invisible
turns on itself, stirring the curtains

when everyone’s looking. Once
they’re seen, patterns of flatness

give us away. I’m not suggesting
reflective masking. This is when meaning

rests on the space between words. Extra
ordinary. Think blending in to the point

of irrelevance. Anyone watching will barely
notice, as if you’d been tumbled or blown.



Once Around

No one else disturbs the lake.
My neighbor, the skier, carves the bay
one-handed, creasing the surface outside
the wake. Bringing him back, before it arcs

away, the boat dips its nose toward shore
and my neighbor, being slung, begins his countdown,
trusting his body’s barely conscious grasp
of centrifugal math, holding the bar till it’s 2-1-go.

Knowing and acting in the same moment. This
is always how I picture it, gravity centered, force
accounted for. Clear and simple. One thing left.
Countdown expires and he opens his hand.


Bionote

Scott Davidson lives with his wife in Missoula, MT. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bright Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing, Potomac Review, and the Permanent Press anthology, Crossing the River: Poets of the Western United States.

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