So hot the shore we drove through four states
to reach stays dazed a skipping-stone’s throw 
beyond the window, though the tide creeps out,

I hold my brother’s daughter in my lap
and clip her fingernails. She sits expectant
and will not be distracted from the unfolding

The suddenly bought land
Was stilled in its habits. Indians
Too light-fingered for events

This cemetery is no haven, 
old Jews waving at you 
offering Kaddish for a few dollars, 

A tongue crossing the place where we burn
our trash, the snail slides over
ashes, nails and glass, moving

Did you love her? I thought about her
continuously for a year. There were whole hours
there was nothing too thin about her look, her voice.

The child floats out his Indian cry
Across the river. Where did the Mohawks go to?
It arrives with the breath of mudflats as we pass by

As a kid I never thought of “pain” as
  something I felt. What I felt I could not
name or share. Now out the window I watch

What you know, O fool, no one else does.
And what no one else knows,
I am not equal to.

A man bigger than you and more intelligent
walks into his future as into a dining room
anticipating small surprises and large comforts.