Every so often my ex-husband comes over,
still boyish in his advancing years.
I catch him up on our grown children,
the grandkid’s music lessons, soccer games,

The cedar chest smelled musty and forbidding.
It held props for her part, she who passed off-stage
leaving bits and pieces
of that act: a yellowed collar, sachets,

A red shirt bridges the prejudice
of dark jeans and white sheets
strung on a line between
back porch and crooked hickory pole.

We come together these dark mornings,
you at your work, I at mine,
scanning papers, making notes,
the rustle of pages, clicks of the keyboard,

The boy picks through windblown woods,
footsteps quiet on moss and damp needles, eyes
scanning the forest floor for green maple or oak.
His grandfather’s Laguiole jackknife

I watch at the front window
as you move in unison between the trees
then down the long, curved driveway
to where flooding from our neighbor’s pond

Tonight, at the magic hour,
I’ll be joining the hummingbirds
Taking my shower in the misty spray of the watering hose
Dancing bare breasted up the rainbows of sparkling water beads