Your sister wouldn’t even shake its hand.
Behind the felled sycamore, your mother
shook sand from a plaid scarf. Tintype sky,
late August, late afternoon, and the wind
come and gone. Just like that. No loss.
But look: two houses down the gravel beach
the neighbors’ Jacobins up and flown away,
strewn pigeon feathers, mangled wire mesh.
Shame.
You knew enough to slip from this town
out and into love, motels, and unlocked
synagogues. Kiss its throat as the water
quickens, studded with sleek platinum
lights on the opposite shore. It knows
a little bit – this next pneumatic whistle
is the third shift, vague anger blown awake
again, somehow machines are making things.
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