Jami Macarty
That Day at the Lake
her nephew’s car had capsized three thousand miles to the east. She went behind a tree,
shimmied into her bathing suit under a towel. Someone was watching. That day at the lake she
rushed the water, braked at sand-edge. Someone was watching. That day at the lake hamburgers
were scarce. With her back to a picnic table, she took a bite of a hot dog in her bathing suit and
bare feet. Something bumped her in the day. The one who said he had been watching said I have
been watching you. I think you’re sexy. What did she say that day at the lake when she hadn’t yet
cried. When she didn’t know if her nephew would live. God knows. She left the hot dog on the
table, went behind a tree and changed. He was watching. Knees to chin at the sand-edge, she
watched the lake until it was time to go to the valley. That day at the lake when it was time for
the picnickers to caravan their return to the valley, there had been an accident on the road that
meant they couldn’t. The road knows. That day at the lake while they waited for the roadway to
clear she went behind a tree, shimmied into her bathing suit under a towel. He was watching.
That day at the lake while she waited to hear if her nephew had any brain activity she decided to
go in the water after all. That day at the lake her pregnant friend said her husband, a hydrologist,
advised her not to go in the water. That day at the lake she changed out of her bathing suit under
a towel behind a tree. She knew he was still watching. That day at the lake no one preempted the
wind before the dandelions hit going to seed. God knows. That day at the lake beach tar. The
road knows. That day at the lake three thousand miles to the east her nephew on a ventilator,
parietal bone removed. That day at the lake three thousand miles to the east the neurosurgeons
gave caveats. God knows. There was no changeroom. There were trees. There were wildflowers.
She was at the lake. She was barefoot. That day at the lake dandelions daisies lupine. She was
barefoot. Her bathing suit the color of the lake. That day at the lake tiger lily fireweed. That day
at the lake her nephew’s grey brain dark three thousand miles to the east. That day at the lake the
roadway cleared after sunset. By the winding road he left. The winding road from the dark lake
to the dark valley. With beach tar on the bottoms of her feet. She sat in the back seat of her
pregnant friend’s car. The darkling road on the bottoms of her feet.
Jami Macarty is the author of "The Long Now Conditions Permit," winner of the Test Site Poetry Prize and a 2025 University of Nevada Press title, and "The Minuses," a Center for Literary Publishing Mountain/West Poetry Series title and winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award, and four chapbooks. Supported by Arizona Commission on the Arts and BC Arts Council, Macarty's writing is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Colorado Review, and Conduit. Macarty teaches creative writing at Simon Fraser University and lives in and learns from the arborescent desert around Tucson, Arizona, and the rain coast of Vancouver, British Columbia.