Warm, radiant afternoon after days and days of rainy gloom,
the girls bursting with born-again good intention.
“I want to eat more vegetables. Carrots and broccoli and green beans,”
Giulia announces from her car seat.

What is metaled, what is stretched taut enough?

What’s said –an albatross “happens”– back-lit by white and golden flurries of clouds.

Through a shop window, I watch a man / strip a mannequin / down to her fiberglass shell.

One cannot prepare for slaughter.
Last month, a cognition test for your son:
Does a rock float in water?

In the San Francisco
of my twenties, we were like trees
pressed against each other, larger
than what we longed for.

I join a bereavement group
But I last for one session
Marriages over fifty years
Died suddenly
Brain aneurism
Long battle with cancer
I am the only one
Who isn’t crying

You touched my chest with your fingertips
as I lay next to you trying to sleep.
“Try to rest,” you said, by which you meant,
Gird your loins, my love, and prepare your heart,
for tomorrow I may leave you.