"The rented lakes of my childhood": A Poem

Ludington, MI mid 1960s

The rented lakes of my childhood
by Marge Piercy


I remember the lakes of my Michigan
childhood. Here they are called ponds.
Lakes belonged to summer, two-week
vacations that my father was granted by
Westinghouse when we rented some cabin.
Never mind the dishes with spiderweb
cracks, the crooked aluminum sauce
pans, the crusted black frying pans.
Never mind the mattresses shaped
like the letter V. Old jangling springs.
Moldy bathrooms. Low ceilings
that leaked. The lakes were mysteries
of sand and filmy weeds and minnows
flickering through my fingers. I rowed
into freedom. Alone on the water
that freckled into small ripples,
that raised its hackles in storms,
that lay glassy at twilight reflecting
the sunset then sucking up the dark,
I was unobserved as the quiet doe
coming with her fauns to drink
on the opposite shore. I let the row-
boat drift as the current pleased, lying
faceup like a photographer’s plate
the rising moon turned to a ghost.
And though the voices called me
back to the rented space we shared
I was sure I left my real self there-
a tiny black pupil in the immense
eye of a silver pool of silence.


The rented lakes of my childhood" by Marge Piercy from Made in Detroit. © Knopf, 2015. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)