5 October 2025

By Philip Kuepper

Glitter vests the entirety
of Mystic River
this sun-drowned September morning,
on which vest sits pinned,
like a brooch,
a women’s eight intent
on their coach’s instructions.
All lies still in concentration:
the morning, the river, the women’s eight.
Only the coach, standing, moves,
underscoring his words with the occasional
sweep of one arm, or the other.
I am watching a moment taking shape,
and filling with the poem
innate to it,
that at no other moment could ever have
possibly been written.

(20 September 2025)