She Said in the LADIES,
in the rest area LADIES on the road to 
Terre Haute. Plenty of angels, she said again. 

Not just because a child draws him — pie-faced and frontal, 
Grinning—it’s hard to watch the man’s head and hands take shape 
From a black magic marker, despite the other colors in the box: 

The whole idea of it makes me feel 
like I’m coming down with something, 
something worse than any stomach ache 

The imagination, improvising, translated burly leather 
into an overcoat of armor, converted brawn to iron. 
For wrinkled folds, die-tooled metal plates 

   Once, at the bottom of summer,
we pushed on — Caitlin and Jill and Peter

Summer afternoon, Henry James said,
the most beautiful words in the language.

No sooner had they carried their martinis
over to the café’s remotest table

High noon in the park, as the year begins its
onward march to truly infernal weather.

No good reflecting on what might have been
if I’d been different —no straying

We forgot our coats, shoes,
left everything in a jumble,