The Boatman Considers a Scone

Centuries upon centuries of oaring
ingrates across this boring river
and finally I’m bored too. Used to be
I’d never notice what they’d wear
or who they showed up with, but now
I’m fascinated with every one.

Yesterday a woman from Hibernia
arrived at my dock holding no coins
but what looked to be a stone. “No,” she said,
“scone,” and immediately I was lost.
What’s a scone? “You eat it,”
she said, and I laughed out loud.

“Might just as well be a stone,” I said
in helping her aboard. Her eyes went
blank as she sat, rigid as an oar,
brought the scone to her lips.
“Scone,” she said, but not to me,
and, coinless, I pushed away from shore.

Ron Hayes is a poet and fiction writer from Erie, PA. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from Queens University of Charlotte, and was twice selected as Poet Laureate of Erie County Pennsylvania. His poems have appeared in such places as Fjords Review, Rosebud Magazine, Gutter Eloquence, and forthcoming from The Five-Two. Originally a Special Education teacher, he now teaches History at inner-city East High School where he also coaches football and girls’ basketball.