The dogs of war sniff at our heels.
And every canine fang craves meat.
The bell of forgiveness rarely peels.
Streams run red. There’s nothing to eat.

I see you darn the autumn air
at the lake’s edge,
back and forth,
back and forth,
as if the fabric of sunlight

My parents were rarely on the same wavelength.
Most of the time they talked at each other,
not to each other. But here they are,
by a quirk of the Hebrew calendar,

in the middle of the rotating stars
strange sounds a fog falling past you
Hannah is heard crying out for her baby
when it snows no snow touches his grave

Waning moon bright outside my window knows more about the earth than we do. She has seen it all, the caves, the plains, the meadows, the fish, the lizard, the leap to trees and air. The ocean keeping her own company without needing visitors from dry land. The ships. The bounty. The lack of mercy. The fire, the chains, the bullets. Losses and gains. Leavings. Settling.

We rode together, you and I down that blanketed coastal road.
Port Orford to Bandon and back again. Me, at the front
of the bus to not get queasy. You, inside the ocean
of my belly. In the beginning, we knew nothing of charred ground.
What came before. What would come after. But after