11

the man four-legged with arm braces
isn’t there anymore, and the lady
too fat to wobble her knees past

each other, where was she, and Mrs.
Fox, a decisive sharp lady with a
constant near-smile and a fine-lady

accent, where will her like be found
again, here by the waters of the
Inlet, the boats’ reflections too

glassy to bob, the gulls crying
downward swoops, the ducks flicking,
drawing those huge wedges of

ripples behind them: but here is a
young man and woman holding hands,
looking at the vegetables as from

another planet, she with a bottom
broad & warm for planting, his
schlong adequate to bed the

deepest seed, and the black dog
licks the baby’s face, the stroller
bumping to the plank cracks:

even where the air is empty it is
filled with space and sunlight,
the jabber of buyers and sellers:

those who miss the missing will soon
be missing: Mrs. Fox, are you gone,
or do you wait somewhere in a nursing

home and someone else is preparing
your potatoes, mashing them maybe
when they are already cold: are

you healing, may you return, will we
see you again: we hardly knew you,
still now we realize we loved you,

your face set with a smile, your
quick movements, your choice salad
leaves: the market will leave the

shoreline, the giant poplar will
give up more than its leaves, the
ladybugs all frigging this morning

on the green plant or weed will have
to shop this strange place for
the needed damp: the wind almost

totally missing will show up somewhere
else and sing a different song or
maybe the one known here heretofore