lydia’s face a purple kite
above lakeside olive
groves by the lake
of the dead open
to eclipse
waiting on her sons wears their absence as
a necklace
laugh at what
what to laugh to what
to laugh
what laugh what is there to laugh
about
back at home
she’ll wind a clock
from the judgment
realm tick away
her pain in step
with footfalls
under the
floorboards
drink the seaside road, drink the dusk
and follow chain lightning.
or instinctive memory
of flare, of careless sighting. for sun.
for afternoon’s low-slung fog
as our humid breath puddles the road.
we walk tangled with worry
and tied in loose knots.
under a drowning moon struggle
to bind the books of childhood.
the last pages are turned. the last umber words.
with fashionable howls they make us
forget the concept of names,
the naming of objects requiring a name,
the objects themselves.
we forget the sea still damping our
shoes, forget the soft curve of a baby’s
wide eyes. forget churches melting under
the sand. their salt-stained walls. their
soft particles of tide.
