You stood at the end
of the wharf, you and your sister.
Cautious. In handfuls, your mother’s ashes
catching the wind,
landing on the lake’s surface.
End of June, wind
lifted your hair.
Which is how
it might have been.
The lake is not
a lake, only a bulge in the river;
the two mountains, only hills.
Your mother spent her summers here.
She knew how fast
a storm surged. Ricocheted across water
from the far-off north shore.
Darkness catapulting.
When it came, the air turned
electric. Even the house, chill
as an icebox,
every light going out.