April 22: we sputter outside
a MiniMart in a planned
community near Baltimore.
Inside, you lock horns
with the Pakistani over hotdogs,
maps; your contentious communion
is foreign. You were Hart Crane
in a former life. How you'll decide
to end this one is questionable.

I occupy the passenger's seat
against my will; comfort,
in bucket seats or liaisons, rests
on accommodating vicissitudes.

The motor is running;
quick escapes are your M.O.
Passé Simon and Garfunkel
kicks around the radio waves;
a fabricated pond, too many
trumped up trees stand
on my right-hand side. Hire
Rasputin to direct set design
and this is what you get.

I am looking up. Two western grebes
soar, swoop, dive, shampoo,
rinse, repeat around the pond.
Raptors synchronized, not
indigenous. They are off-course.

Twenty years have passed, precisely.
A wasted merlin, not aquatic, veered,
dived; ill-timed syncopation. A bridge,
troubled water, laid him down.
I bowed my head to that alliance,
kept it low through the interment
and years of sidewalk walks where
the only change I bummed
was made of mercury or wood.

The grebes hesitate, mate,
flick wings against the water,
completely immerse, then lift.
With head bowed, I would have
missed this. You return to our car;
I look you straight in the eye.