Some Branches

In summer the mulberries fell.
In fall the wall crumbled
and we held hands
because of the rain
and to make a mistake.

And to imagine a glass
of mulberry wine and how
winter would be in the morning,
a flurry, a blur of a remembered
bee, furious, among the fallen fruit.

Your hair fluttered
in the lake, seemed to swim
on its own. Then we brewed tea
and pieced together a book
from what remained:

some branches,
a gust of wind, an old man
on Fourth Street stumbling
and hunched. I remember
sleeping to the sound of trains.

One of us grew older,
the other grew silent, played
solitaire by the radio
as the children collided
with monsters. The air

in March was somehow thick
against the windows.
By Easter Monday
neither cared to be alive,
so we planted trees and waited.

Down Euclid Ave.

Down Euclid Ave. I walked
toward the lake. The birds

in the shadows the buildings
made—my citizens—my wind.

What does August whisper
to November? In the coffee shop

I asked no question. I got old
with pondering and prayer.

And now the balcony,
the coffee in last night’s mug,

the burden of wind. We see
the moth imposed upon,

balance indistinct from flight.
We see the tombstone sway,

the building at risk. We see
nothing: effects without sources.

The canal went dry overnight,
and morning knows nothing

but the moment, not the night
before, the hours stretched

by dinner and talk, a second glass
of Beaujolais, the shape

of a girl’s neck shadowed
on the table.