Never Peripheral

This, too, is what happens.

Nothing elides anything else. Rain on maple trees with only one or two leaves left. Chain saw grinding a quarter mile away. What man would I be if I had never had a son?

Hawks cross Route 202, I get beeped at because I swerve to see better, raise a hand to say my bad, hawk indistinguishable now from a crow. Blue light in the reservoir. Afternoon is what rises out of morning.

I remember skipping class to eat mushrooms, just sitting on the bed, watching numbers on the digital clock turn to meaningless lines and squiggles, knowing at last a language that transcended understanding. Poems left in Virginia Woolf paperbacks. I cried and each tear was a chunk of broken glass.

Light everywhere, even in death.

Context is decoration, extra, but never peripheral.

Between hemlock trees a seam opens, it's like gazing into another world beyond this one, Monarch butterflies the size of small cars.

Polishing the hardwood floors with watered-down vinegar, the movie Sophia is watching floating through ceilings and walls, happy-sounding dialogue, punchy music. 

How I let everybody down, how I crawl back, obfuscating any effective healing with performative penance. 

Early tricks, moves we made that worked but don't any longer. Bittersweet drying in moonlight.

But what?

The apple tree asks why we we never made love and I smile happily, grateful for trees that have not forgotten how to talk.