12 July, 49th Year

And then one afternoon the robin lands in the mimosa and turns
first one bright eye, then the other. The worm droops from her beak.
Turn your own head, your forward, predatory eyes away. You must
mean her no harm. Beyond her in the plum nestlings fidget and simmer.
She will trust you then and hop down the branch and fly to them.
Some sounds you know you're not hearing half of.

And then nothing is fixed and bills lie unpaid in the pile. But
a postcard from November slides out: "... more places we didn't go
than places we did go. It's a very large country." And tears spring
so glad of the daughter. But summer. But sweet wind.
But the woman who serves coffee lets you look in her eye
straight as you need to, talks easy, smiles, glances back.
And then nothing will happen, but a dove has descended.

And then divorce is still final, your mother just as dead.
One week you finally pay the state and that very day
the feds ask for theirs. But the solution which arrived at work
while you bent to pick up the pen flitted away, came back in the hall,
turns out correct. But a woman who left and a woman who said go
and a third who made it impossible to stay all call the same day
and each makes a gift of it. But be suddenly right enough
and hair will stand up on your arms.

And then the letter will come with the forgotten money. But the woman
fled, who won't call, hurts just as much. But robins believe you.
But the ache knows where it lives now and no longer circles.
You must nod to the pain, a kind of neighbor, and you must mean it.

Copyright 1998 by Greg Keith