Thunder unrolling over the vulnerable city,
purple and ink blue, above the huddle of workers
scrambling to commute, some to a bar where

In the good old days mutations appeared everywhere, 
and every second baby was a monster.  
I wish I could have lived then, neighbor 

‘We went to New York,’ Kathy said.
‘Colin was painting well then, and he was
on the edge of a breakthrough, he said.
Breakdown was more like it. He was drinking,

Something's bothering the dog tonight—
the neighbor's pig, maybeit's not fair
the way they feed that thing. Your hair, under the porch

As he starts with her tippet, takes off
her bonnet, moves on to fingering
stay and skin, my brain cells stray

His eyes dart through a physical-asset
inventory; he asks, was I wondering,
as he gestures to the contents of his cart, 

Four businesswomen of a certain age
in serious suits, networking. A taut,
tanned, author, speaker, corporate advisor

Hunting along the logging road
swamped through to Pockwock Lake,
we stopped beside the spring to drink—
startled a drowsing snake.

Your will is done. Its promise, that I fled,
Drove me from friends and from the high homeland,
Where bear-grass stung like snakebite and my skin

In the two photographs I have of her,
taken over ten years apart, she wears
the same plain dress. In the first,