She was thirty-three when she died.
You suggest I take you where she was buried.
It’s been years since I drove there
and I’m anxious when I can’t locate it.
I find the pine tree first, taller now,
of course, then the stone and
under her name, a boy’s mossy name.
I pull back from the stain of light
skimming from Lake Erie,
dates brimming from the granite.
Driving back, you confess
you do not have the strength
to deal with my pain. But,
I’m unable to understand everything you say
because halfway some words turn back and return to you.
I watch you, and the creek beside the road,
and I’m wondering how one keeps up
with its quickness,
slowly moving under the pines.
I see you in the mirror,
radiant as an angel, or as lightening,
or the shining creek that is moving fast,
as it is slowly under the shadows
of the pines. I’m fine, I say;
it’s just all this light filling up
the holes my eyes have always seen with.

and she’s no longer there.
and looking at myself in the mirror,
she would think I was weeping
to see whether I’ll find anything
but it’s just all this light.
My license says, I’m still fifty.