Oil-slick, slack shocks, ancient engine
smoking like a burning tire,
Augustus' old truck yaws and slews,
its leaf-springs limp these centuries
suspending apples, somehow pulls
the last hill past the bridge at Isle
La Motte. I hear the iron arches
groaning. Why not? Whole orchards
rattling, empty racks behind us,
emptied into grain sacks, piled
behind us — home ahead, we broach
the mile-long causeway cross from Grande Isle
back.
A blue heron's motionless
in marsh grass to my right, and pole
and icepack at my left — one line,
two lanes, a roostertail of blue
exhaust, we part the cooling waters
of Champlain.
The moon's a pool
of mercury. It's zero. Ice soon.
Steaming like a teacup, losing
heat, the lake is tossing clouds up
all around the truck; and tucked
so in its fragile ribcage creel,
the cold heart thump accordions
to keep alive, and fills, as apples
interrupt this landscape's black-
on-grey like heartbeats full of blood,
strung beads, a life of little suns
gone rolling down the press and sump
of memory and changing form
as thump , horizon groans and ladles
light, and the real sun comes up,
sudden, weightless, warm.