Patricia Brodie
Last Vacation

We heard the birds and monkeys shriek
behind us in the cashew trees,
the nearer waves, the clink of spoons
as we sat before the arc of beach
that hot Hawaiian afternoon.
Our children played at water’s edge,
we’d look up from our magazines—
a picture of staid privilege—
but whispered insults though it seemed
we were untroubled as the sea.
Yet I knew then that sharks swam there
and riptides formed invisibly.
Our family seemed ideal the day
our perfect marriage slipped away.

_ _

[In the print edition, this poem appeared erroneously under the title "Family Vacation." We regret this error. -Eds.]

Patricia Brodie, a graduate of Boston University’s School of Social Work, is a clinical social worker with a private psychotherapy practice in Concord, Mass. Her poems have appeared in several journals, including The Comstock Review, The Lyric, California Quarterly, Raintown Review, The Pedestal, and Phoebe. Her chapbook The American Wives Club was published in 2006 by Ibbetson Street Press.

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