We all heaped up hot-house flowers
and ate fried chicken, giggling
at dead things from our childhoods,
even the attic's parched Victrola.
A long time they had been so old.
Then he covered my face in his hands
so I wouldn't cry, and he talked
soft like nothing was wrong.
Leaflets blew all over the lawn.
But below the footbridge
was spring with worms and toads,
everything green growing out of mud
and a new old briny smell of beached
fish. After so long the music
from such a distance
was just for hands on waists
and walking solemn over everything
that ever died, and the river
sighs to take us with it down-
stream as it flows.