BU Creative Writing

The Ponds of Boston

Some pitted by rain like spotted mirrors, others 

green and smoky as Venetian glass, 

choked with weeds and hidden
in the woods; some shallow as the palm
of a hand, and clear to the bottom, bright
with koi; still others dark and turbid, stirred
from underneath; some salty to the taste 

like tears, brittle surfaces on which the water lily
and the hyacinth unfold, proliferate-
(and if a church bell were to strike, they would
shatter like a pane of glass-) 
 


Across Chandler’s Pond, the medieval
stone towers of Boston College. In a darkened
room, a student reads about the future
from the past, his life shining quietly within him
like a lamp turned low-the brief
gleam of a flashlight, the cottages
reflected in the water, afraid almost 

of themselves.

Taylor Altman was born and raised on Long Island. A graduate of Stanford University and the Creative Writing Program at Boston University, she currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she works for QuestBridge, a non-profit program that connects low-income students with scholarship opportunities. Her first book, Swimming Back, was recently published by Sunnyoutside Press, and her poems are forthcoming in Salamander and Silk Road.