If we spend our life remembering what we love,
to be sure who we are, Graham endures like ivy.
Even if I were, and I wasn’t, the poisoner,
nine dogs to my credit, I still might own by right
of blood the long poplar windbreak by the road.
If I were the bigot who ran the bar, September still
might die forever in the fern. Whatever’s sad
about moving away is a replay in the throat
of some old deeper grief we’d rather forget.
Again, my car, not old this time, not burning oil,
dives down the hill I’ve hoarded twenty years
to Graham. All’s improved. Fat dogs doze
in buttercups and the kind author of books
about peach trees waves from his porch.
And things are the same. Poplars sway like early girls
in dream and sun flushes the swallows
who ride thermals wisely into the world
of black dazzle and take their place with the stars.