Kelly Erin Gray

back bay, reclaimed

the back bay in boston, where brownstones
sprout brick by brick as weeds in the sidewalk,
is built on reclaimed land. what that means
is landfill, what that means is the bay was cut
off from its source like a baby weaned too soon,
crying out but unable to nurse on the tide.
the remains of newspaper tell of the smell;
letters to the editor on the community cesspool
and its discontents. it was new money then,
before it was old money now. I wonder if
the ground had a give to it, in the way a marsh
gives in when you step into its slow cook
crockpot mill and meal. they filled in
the waterways with the hills they carved out,
and I wonder how long it took to start,
like a sandcastle built in the early afternoon
before the night’s tide crept in, and it’s getting
darker earlier again now. on moving days,
people leave loveseats out in the rain
for people to imagine in their living rooms
but never claim. if they had to fill in the dam
now, they could stack them all on top like a movie
theater’s dusty auditorium, and when the tide
comes in we could ride the stained cushions
into the current like it was a ride, like we
had been planning for it all along.

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Kelly Erin Gray is a writer and English PhD candidate at Boston College. Her writing has appeared in The River and she can be found online @kelly_erin_