Solstice

by Allen M. Weber
Desert Moon Review
Second Place, August 2011
Judged by Tyehimba Jess


Did you see me, Dad? Under the humid moon, he’s somersaulted—barely a splash.
Watch me, Dad! For one sprawling moment he crawls through a deepening prism.
Suspended like a mayfly in amber, he is baptized. Will you swim with me, Dad?
Maybe later, my boy. Yet in hazy summers ago, I otter beneath a flickering

surface; reflections blaze from lakeside bonfires. At the cool mud bottom, weeds
caress my ankles as I re-breathe the air between puffed cheeks. Still my father
waits—a lighthouse at the end of the dock—the cherry of his cigar glowing,
fading, while twists of smoke and maybes climb our diminished night.


Solstice brings the reader into a world where the father is a shadowy lighthouse, one that we know to be flawed and somewhat indifferent, but constant and loved at once. ---Tyehimba Jess