by Liz Ahl

At midweek dinner out, we're seated
by the windows, the romantic lakeview,
and the waiter treats us like we're from away
instead of just up the road, the register
of his inquiries and comments
ramped up to tourism-level ebullience
on this final day of May. We don't care
to correct him, awash in the warm fervor
of his ministrations after slogging
through another brutal winter.

He brings us a burrata as white
as the two swans floating
where ice once locked this cove up tight
except for the holes drilled beneath
the bob houses which themselves
had to be re-opened each fishing day.

The waiter tells us the swans are there
to scare away the nuisance geese,
and it slowly dawns as we stare:
the swans bobbing on the lake
are fake. They're anchored
near shore, their plastic necks
curved permanently into regal esses.

Like the tourists, the geese return
each spring; unlike the tourists,
they aren't contributing to the tax base
albeit they are loud and curious and many.
To help the scarecrow swans,
a fake fox stands frozen at the water's edge,
head bowed eternally in the moment
just before taking the drink she'll never take.

Liz Ahl is the author of the poetry collections A Case for Solace (2022) and Beating the Bounds (2017) as well as several chapbooks, including A Thirst That's Partly Mine. She is the winner of the 2008 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Prize. She lives in Holderness, New Hampshire.