A notice on your house (which is not
yours anymore): Avis municipal, le permit . . . .
It’s hard to know what comes next.
Your sister reads French,
but the print is small, the notice long,
and the day rockets by. In front, beyond the low wall,
wind pitches the lake.
Clapboard, tall as a sail, the house
billowed in summer, but in winter
it measured its breath,
pooled silence in porcelain bowls,
stashed haircombs, clamshells under the eaves.
Before that sign appeared,
the past had no end.
No one is home. You peek through the dark windows.
Who lives here now
means nothing to you.
Only the lake remains real, its abandonments
slow as the stars. The path to the lake
rucks over with sedges, gooseberries,
your dead aunt’s muguets de bois.
The water that leaks from your palm
still smells like a cold silver spoon.
A boat (not your boat)
rocks on the white water.
Shore grasses sharpen the air,
scythe the wind as it blows off the fetch.