Knots
Out of the deck of knots
draw the Carrick Bend,
a nautical knot I used to tie
two heavy ropes together enabling
the knot to loosen or tighten.
Dad used knots
to tie tarps to his truck.
After retirement he hooked rugs
depicting puppies and kittens
we never raised.
I hand the knot pack off
after finding the nautical ones,
most of the deck.
Joe tries to teach the bowline.
He struggles to remember
the directions until he wraps
the rope around his waist
pleased his body knows
what his mind’s forgotten.
•••
The Summer Triangle
The boat rocks.
We search the sky sea
above the last mast
for the summer triangle:
the brightest star,
Vega, straight up,
the second, Altair,
lowest in the triangle,
Deneb, the third point.
Andromeda,
a hazy spiral
through the glass,
a blur to the solitary
naked eye.
Her galaxy weighs
more than the Milky Way,
spins double
the dark matter
out over the earth,
the ocean,
Lake Superior.
•••
Nodin Press published Kate Hallett Dayton’s poetry collection, Salt Heart in April, 2013. Her chapbook, Catalpa, from Green Fuse Press, was published in Fall, 2013. She traveled to Belgium on a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant to research her novel, Available Light, and received a Nolte-Miller Full Scholarship in fiction from the Split Rock Arts Program at the University of Minnesota as well as an Art in the Wild fiction fellowship from University of California, Davis. Her work has been published in American Voices, Flyway, Nimrod International, North Coast Review, Passages North, Whistling Shadesand, and other literary magazines. She has taught for such educational organizations as The Loft Literary Center and Hamline University.