here in the moment the forever

she wakes up before it's light
he's been awake all night again
watching for the police
he believes things that aren't true
he thinks because he took two cigarettes
from an acquaintance that the police are looking for him
the sons are upstairs
awake or sleeping
she's not sure

sometimes she wakes up and he's kneeling
beside the bed
tears running down his face
she offers to swallow him
but he jumps up and slams around in the closet
looking for suitcases
or runs outside in his socks
pretending to leave
but he comes back
the sons are upstairs
listening

then a breaking down before morning
the father downstairs
the sons upstairs
the minute hand falls into the refrigerator and breakfast
comes clattering across the lawn
its spoons and bowls and burning toast

she rests a while in the bed
remembering a warm barn
bins full of soybeans
lofts piled with hay
the caged ferret below
there it is     says the uncle
pointing through the wire and cobwebs

crossing fields of deep snow
the uncle and the father carry guns
she has the ferret
if she'd looked into the sky
instead of trying to plant her feet in
their big bootprints
she'd have seen her sons' faces
cloudy and expectant
watching her
we're coming someday
you can sing to us over and over
fill our bowls
the sweetest sweet
my babies
she might have thought
here in the moment the forever
my babies wait in a sky

the sons are coming down the stairs
into the 16th of september
the father is gone
fallen off the edge of circle ave
the mother and the sons are here
as if it were anywhere else and their faces
drift in and out of rooms
now and now and now
like the leaves falling into the pond years later
every leaf meeting its reflection
the sun burning white on the pond's face
the blue heron's nest deserted it's the way of the world
ducks so high and flying off
the spring phlox picked and pressed and sent away
in airmail envelopes
remember-me-here letters
the photographs
she sees the elderberries dried on the bush
her basket empty and elsewhere
don't     don't she says to nobody
adoring the sound of the reeds
most of all