Suddenly Seeing in Absent Sandstone How It Will Be

Mostly time is slow about amputating
our lives from us. Our fifteen-year-old sits
at the table where she was four, debating
how many weeks in our hometown will fit
into her summer, and we let her win.
My young body and your young body are gone.
Years, we don’t see some people we call friends.
Our college has buildings where there was lawn.
Today though, back here without you, I walked
the island shore path out to the spire
on which we sat with our pizza slices. Our rock.
Jetty in the waves. Perch over flat water.
Where the iced brush parted, out past the snow,
I saw what some storm had done.