for Elaine

I live at the bottom of a hill near a 
broken fence beside tracks of steel. 

On the other side a stream moves upon itself 
not confusing itself as ice for rocks alone. 

A memory in the sound of water, a dazzle of 
sky, takes a silly surface tone from what runs 

beneath, outrunning rocks because it can; 
desire that force which drives the sand. 

The movement of water too is undeniable, 
solid in its course though sand, as does water, 

knows nothing of remorse. 

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At the fence I wait. No train yet 
which will be a movement too beside 
the wet, and these thoughts here. 

That you are tissue essential and fabric 
to my own particularity. 

I send you a sound wonder, a welcome again 
to that place you dwell here within, 

Time the only disparity. 
 

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Snow on Telford gravestones, tall 
houses on cupped hills in squared 

parcels back lit with sunset's down-light, 
juxtapose a Wyeth isolation and beauty 

which is the dutiful image of you, heart 
breaking through remembering our first meeting. 

OR 

Which is the dutiful image of you? 
Heart broken remembering the first meeting, 

then the departing? 
 

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The distant gazebo of that small 
town wears white lights garlanded 

round, and snow. A boy without 
gloves reads alone. 

He is no fool who takes his time and 
place to know. 
 

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I rediscover you a gift here still as 
I have in good counsel curtsied and coughed 

often enough, my own hand to my own groin, 
to discover a fissure again, again to repeat, 

that you are tissue essential still and 
fabric to my own particularity upon a hill, 

a house, one fence above a stream and rails, 
a blinking boy turning wet pages knows that 

you or someone similar, only a few years 
ahead, already familiar, dwells inside, 

compels his reading just before sunset 
squinting at words beyond and past the 

fence and the stream, the train late, 
footprints dark blue in the patient drift.