We look at each other and are sad.
There’s a pear tree beside you,
(in fact you’re surrounded by fruit trees—

The valley otherwise
charred, this glade is
old-growth miracle.

This is what comes of a Lammas Eve, tho I did not think of that at all this
year until I had awakend at two in the night with the lines “My mother
would be a falconress.

The baby sings in her high chair
at the banquet.

I know most people at this table,
but not everyone. The keynote speaker talks
about how to make beauty in today’s world. A woman
we met during cocktails whispers
that she wants a picture of the baby.

Ray would say no.

He thinks he can protect her, but I don’t.

We flew through a thunderstorm on our way into
Pittsburgh, landing without incident, but a hailstorm
           descended, delaying our bags.

It was on evenings like this,
in spite of the good talk

Yesterday in the locker room
a young man told his friend
how he did it to her

He was always so interestingly wrong.
I loved him, in fact for years couldn’t live
without him, he who helped crystallize

The dolphin was all undulation,
riding its whims and churning 
the ocean, dorsal fin and bottlenose

you two who have taken each other
many times before, then this
is something to be trusted,