https://soundcloud.com/ella-schoening/remembering-you
I know this poem is kind of ambiguous, I tried to play around with it a bit but I ended up liking this version the best. Let me know if the ambiguity works or if I do need to put more explanation in. Also if you guys could tell me which gate you entered the poem through, which phrases are the weakest and which are the strongest, and then any overall comments or suggestions you have.
Remembering You
by Ella Schoening
Last summer was sunburnt skin and salty hair
Long drives with the windows down,
The music loud enough to drown out our singing.
It was meeting up at night to run into the dark ocean
Getting ice cream and laughing in the parking lot.
It was sneaking into my friend’s gated community to skinny dip in the pool
Swimming laps in the water
Chasing frogs and shot gunning seltzers
Reminiscing on the old days.
I said goodbye to you before you left for California
Not knowing you would never come back.
Ever since your funeral
This town no longer feels like home.
Every time I pass the pool, I think of that last night
I know you wanted to kiss me then
But I had known you for fifteen years and didn’t want things to be weird.
“Next time,” I said. “Next time I’ll be braver.”
I saw your dad when I was at work yesterday
I wanted to tell him how much I miss you
But I got choked up on the words
So I didn’t say anything at all.
Ella!
I'm loving this encounter with the father. I think this is so real and so unexpected. It's an "indirect" part of grief and mourning that isn't talked about or written about much. I'm drawn in through the gate of imagery at first. But then a kind of rhetoric becomes really powerful. I think you could bring a great phrase/image like the first line into the final stanza of the poem. Nice work!