Going

Alone now in Oakland. Thin cloud rusting
over Temescal, garlic simmering

in the pan, lavender potted and long dead
in the breezeway. I start the water,

carry the milk crates in from the garage.
You with your mother in Los Angeles.

The lanterns we scavenged and hung
at the ceremony now a soft racket

in the magnolia. Me turning an old
summer over, the one where we slept

most nights in a park in Hartford,
bedded down in the soaked grass.

The local kids coming always after dark
to tag the pumphouse, sling rocks

at the heron cages. Their bright,
startled cries and us burrowing deeper

in our bags. I start unshelving
my books, fitting them side-by-side

in a crate.