Ring Around Rebecca
Audrey Dubois | Poetry, Spring 2026
New Shoreham, RI
Of course I remember
the summer you
became fluent
in baseball, dust
you kicked up
at second, line drives
that left a mark.
Your yellow bike,
like a slingshot across
the Greek Revival
roundabout, couldn’t wait
to celebrate the Year of
the Arcade. You
were neck deep
in Skee-Ball with
dimes dimes dimes
from folding
beach towels
at the big hotel.
Weekends,
you speared worms
and threw them over the
edge of the bridge (my
bridge, you called it) to
snag a catfish, or
to try. And I remember
the penknife
on softwood pine.
This was after
beach, after bonfire, after
your June-to-August
friends took turns
picking tide-polished
rocks to pitch back
into the water, aiming
for the reflected
waxing gibbous.
I understand. You
needed to carve
your names. I won’t tell.
When you embrace
something so
tightly, it’s bound
to leave
a bruise, same
as your skinned knees
when you slide
into home.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“I believe that places have memory. This poem was written after my first visit to Block Island, where my late mother spent most of her summers as a child and teen. I imagined the location would remember her presence like a treasured friend. She left her mark on both the natural landscape and the manmade structures, surveilled by Rebecca, a turn-of-the-20th-century imitative-Greek statue in the center of the town's only traffic circle. I wanted to deliver a reverse-travelogue, by asking a destination to speak about its visitors. By the end of the poem, both my mother and the island have left permanent imprints on each other, proof of the deep, all-consuming love between a person and her place.”
Audrey Dubois is a Rhode Island poet with an MFA from Emerson College. Her work has been published in Fiddlehead Review, Funicular Magazine, and Inklette Magazine, among others. She works at the public library by day and directs theatrical productions by night. She enjoys unusual antiques, ancient epics, and every Carpenters album. You can find more work at aedubois.com.
Ring Around Rebecca
Audrey Dubois | Poetry, Spring 2026
New Shoreham, RI
Of course I remember
the summer you
became fluent
in baseball, dust
you kicked up
at second, line drives
that left a mark.
Your yellow bike,
like a slingshot across
the Greek Revival
roundabout, couldn’t wait
to celebrate the Year of
the Arcade. You
were neck deep
in Skee-Ball with
dimes dimes dimes
from folding
beach towels
at the big hotel.
Weekends,
you speared worms
and threw them over the
edge of the bridge (my
bridge, you called it) to
snag a catfish, or
to try. And I remember
the penknife
on softwood pine.
This was after
beach, after bonfire, after
your June-to-August
friends took turns
picking tide-polished
rocks to pitch back
into the water, aiming
for the reflected
waxing gibbous.
I understand. You
needed to carve
your names. I won’t tell.
When you embrace
something so
tightly, it’s bound
to leave
a bruise, same
as your skinned knees
when you slide
into home.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“I believe that places have memory. This poem was written after my first visit to Block Island, where my late mother spent most of her summers as a child and teen. I imagined the location would remember her presence like a treasured friend. She left her mark on both the natural landscape and the manmade structures, surveilled by Rebecca, a turn-of-the-20th-century imitative-Greek statue in the center of the town's only traffic circle. I wanted to deliver a reverse-travelogue, by asking a destination to speak about its visitors. By the end of the poem, both my mother and the island have left permanent imprints on each other, proof of the deep, all-consuming love between a person and her place.”
Audrey Dubois is a Rhode Island poet with an MFA from Emerson College. Her work has been published in Fiddlehead Review, Funicular Magazine, and Inklette Magazine, among others. She works at the public library by day and directs theatrical productions by night. She enjoys unusual antiques, ancient epics, and every Carpenters album. You can find more work at aedubois.com.