It’s not the sweeping rain that never reaches
dry-topped mesas buttressing the river,
and not this rumpled bed of hills around us,
or copper flashing wings of the flicker
that feeds on berries in our junipers,

What you first notice,
his hands cracked and battered,
in places raw,
from dredging oysters,
his bare living,
from the bottom of the Chesapeake.