First Campout
(Inspired by Maumee Bay State Park, Oregon, OH)
By Kerry Trautman
The tent’s taut nylon flapped, crackled
in night’s variable winds.
In the distance, thunderstorms
had moved on eastward.
The baby slept fitfully,
barely relaxing into steady breaths,
dreaming, perhaps, of lightning
just beyond the soggy meadow
with its shrieking red-wing blackbirds,
or of the campfire and its
new-found, threatening beauty,
waking intermittently in the unfamiliar dark
with its shuddering, movable walls,
groping for my face,
grabbing hold with both sweaty palms,
pressing his forehead to my cheek,
searching, in my skin, for a way home.
Kerry Trautman's poetry and fiction have appeared in various journals, including The Fourth River, Alimentum, Midwestern Gothic, and Think Journal, as well as in anthologies such as Mourning Sickness (Omniarts, 2008,) and Journey to Crone (Chuffed Buff Books, 2013.) Her chapbooks are, Things That Come in Boxes (Kingcraft Press 2012,) To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press 2015,) and Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017.)
Kerry's poem "Marblehead," inspired by Marblehead Lighthouse in northern Ohio, appeared within our 2017 poetry series.
Featured image by Satish Krishnamurthy / CC BY
