on the deck

on the cantilevered deck over Port Susan Bay the Pacific sun slants and casts vertical stripes across the old wood slats as the sun ascends the shadowed stripes thicken striking increasingly acute angles with the parallel planks of the old pine deck in a cockeyed square the sun burnishes two old pennies they flash suddenly, gleaming copper juxtaposed like jeweled game pieces on some ancient runic chessboard on the fir tree before me an irregular rank of fat sparrows stand like pawns in a row for a moment then they explode in a flurry the Cascades loom the pennies fade to pale fired brown the sun's hot tongue licks up the last iridescent jewels of dew from the old wood deck --Ross Bender