This week’s poem, Bryan Butler’s “Pockets,” takes us deep into sense memories of childhood. I love this poem’s rich array of objects and textures, temperatures and flavors, and how it ends on a child’s moment of renewed wonder at the world.

Butler has worked in various industries, ranging from wildlife biology to web design. He finds writing to be a great escape, exercise and therapy, and is grateful for the opportunity to share this poem. He lives in Scarborough.

Pockets
By Bryan Butler

On the banks of a familiar river,
Beyond the ancestral home of a strange last name
And the field corn that was not for eating,
Pale wisps of river smoke gave it all they had,
Against a waking sun.

Sipping a cool chocolate milk,
Bleary-eyed and full of First Grade philosophy,
I flecked the papery bark
Off of a forked stick I found on a cutbank.
The best of the bunch.

I thought about fishing the flannel breast pocket
Lined with quilted satin
And a few chips of loose tobacco–
A future hand-me-down,
And home of the single silver-skinned peppermint Lifesaver.

Somehow the Bluegill, the Sunnie
and even the ancient snag,
Had no interest in the cheese pebble, the ball of bread
Or the rough side of the loose soda tab
That I sometimes pressed into my finger.

I could only surmise it was the lazy ribbons of cigarette smoke
Offered up to the dawn chorus,
The sweet smell of a burnt blonde coffee,
And without a doubt,
The silver-skinned peppermint Lifesaver.

This would surely explain
Irrespective of the rod and reel,
Divining when the fish would bite
And handing me one just in time to re-instill
Reverence through wonderment.

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Pockets,” copyright 2023 by Bryan Butler, appears by permission of the author.