This first Deep Water pick of 2020 is a playful stream-of-consciousness poem of reflection, nostalgia and a deliciously larcenous energy. I love the scenes and moods it conjures, its sense of suspended disappearances and desires.

Jefferson Navicky is the author of poetic novel “The Book of Transparencies” and story collection “The Paper Coast.” He works as the archivist for the Maine Women Writers Collection, teaches English at Southern Maine Community College, and lives on the coast of Maine with his wife and puppy.

 

when were you most happy?

By Jefferson Navicky

 

when were you most happy?

 

was it when you were in Naples and you had just bought the used green

bicycle and you rode it    barely peddling   around the plaza with the wind

streaming from your face?

 

so you locked your bike to a rack near a well-lit parking lot in the morning

it was gone

 

was it when you were driving down Eldridge Avenue in the stolen Chevy

Impala   windows rolled down to the warm night   that slow sad song on the

radio like a rain shower?

 

you wanted to get caught        but you never did

 

Megan Grumbling is a poet who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “when were you most happy?” copyright © 2018 by Jefferson Navicky, reprinted from The Book of Transparencies, published by Kernpunkt Press. It appears by permission of the author.

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