At Victoria Beach

There is a storm

every three years or so:

a bad one, last time, on a night we couldn’t

see the stars from the bed, it took the concrete slab

with the gazebo, pulled it all away overnight.

The giant water reaching up to wrench

the blankets back in fitful dreams.

Like it woke in a story, and found it was a boat,

the hexagonal hive set off into the night,

leaving the land it was

poured into

and joined the leagues of things

far-gazed upon in distant winter claws.

The lake makes apologies, in its repentant moods,

in the form of a wide square dock, washed

on the large back of the beach,

or metes out here a lawn chair,

there a canoe,

whatever the dreaming

land feels you are missing.