Our guests get naked and frolic
They drive tiny trucks into steaming water.
They float wooden boats.
They dive for penny treasure.
We the hosts in shirts and shorts
sit on the edge dangling our feet,
spreading our toes.
From fifty years gone we remember
pioneering bare-ass with friends
in old wooden vats jury-rigged to a heater
—leaky, needing constant repair.
Now plastic and fiberglass, a hot tub
is reliable, a household appliance.
These grandchildren at age two, three, five
bump bodies, take delight, innocent of vice.
Back half a century, TV said we should
dry off, wear bras and Brooks Brothers,
fight wars, kill commies, vote Republican.
They said we were acting
like children.
Joe Cottonwood is a semi-retired contractor with a lifetime of repairing homes by day, writing by night. He lives under (and at the mercy of) redwood trees in La Honda, California. His most recent book is Random Saints.
They drive tiny trucks into steaming water.
They float wooden boats.
They dive for penny treasure.
We the hosts in shirts and shorts
sit on the edge dangling our feet,
spreading our toes.
From fifty years gone we remember
pioneering bare-ass with friends
in old wooden vats jury-rigged to a heater
—leaky, needing constant repair.
Now plastic and fiberglass, a hot tub
is reliable, a household appliance.
These grandchildren at age two, three, five
bump bodies, take delight, innocent of vice.
Back half a century, TV said we should
dry off, wear bras and Brooks Brothers,
fight wars, kill commies, vote Republican.
They said we were acting
like children.
Joe Cottonwood is a semi-retired contractor with a lifetime of repairing homes by day, writing by night. He lives under (and at the mercy of) redwood trees in La Honda, California. His most recent book is Random Saints.