At Camp, 1955
I suppose they wanted us to have
“a healthy respect” for the deep, dark woods,
the counselors cracking jokes amongst themselves
but if we laughed, those forbidding looks,
meaning—demeaningly—we were kids.
anyway, the last night of camp
we gathered late around a fire,
marshmallows on sticks, the night so dark
we couldn’t see ‘til the white blobs ignited,
and yuck! not a treat to taste them burned.
“you have to be careful!” “you have to watch!”
to everything all week they knew the trick,
smug wise guys, years older than us—
for proof, they knew what stories to tell,
bears, werewolves and wolverines,
really—“pay attention” and “watch your step,”
advice by then pretty hard to swallow.
“werewolves?” roger tyler snickered,
his eyebrows raised, his face like a devil’s,
he for one would never believe.
still, we listened to one spooky story,
how werewolves liked to leap from trees,
“and I remember, don’t they have red eyes?”
“yes!” mr. davis said, “—from drinking the blood.”
on the way back there were overhanging trees
with roots in the path we couldn’t see,
I tripped, fell down, but had to keep up with—
terrified of getting even a little behind.
tonight, I found out we’d be unchaperoned,
first time no adult and on our own,
“I trust you—you don’t need supervision.”
what? that sounded like a deliberate lie,
something was going on, mr. bradshaw’s secret.
“yeah,” roger tyler brayed, back in the cabin,
“I bet they’ll sneak out and shine two red lights.”
cabin with twenty of us eight-year-olds,
alone, not quiet, but afraid to be loud.
the one of us sleeping nearest the window,
the window that faced the wood’s deepest expanse,
“you keep an eye open, you tell us what you see,”
expecting, waiting for, three hours our lookout—
I was glad now to be in a top bunk
and not near a window, not near the door,
lying, silent, one knee-hugging shiver,
calculating how high a werewolf could jump,
counting how many others he’d get to first
and how many times I was almost asleep,
I’d hear someone’s hiss of a whisper, “what’s that?”
six or eight times hearing the brave rush to look,
six or eight times also, “oh—come on, that’s nothing!”
–or, a perfect example of the power of suggestion,
or making us sleepy for the bus ride home.
I think I was awake the whole night,
I guess I’m “over-imaginative”
taking the bait. though I never got bit,
boy-oh-boy did I ever bite.
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