ISSUE: Autumn 1981
A salty snow is falling,
softly, softly,
as in my childhood,
but where?—
softly, softly,
as in my childhood,
but where?—
It’s me standing on a corner,
waiting for the bus.
A windy gate.
A month before I knew
I was to leave, my daughter,
fingering the subject
of attachments,
said to me, “Daddy,
I love you so much,
a lot, not too much.
You know what I mean?”
Slipping past the other way,
the dead
arrive every hour, every second.
So the ancient ones,
increasing themselves,
passed over, passed over,
pass over. . . .
A blue truck flies by.
In back—half-buried in the wind—
a dog steadies himself
on a pile of rubber tires.
He snarls at the traffic ribbons,
a salmon in his teeth
just dragged from the sea.
