a man thinks of another man
far away; the heaven and earth
that gave birth to his mysterious, unique flesh.
morning spills its invisible milk
across the lawn. children flag
a bus, lunch pails banging knees,
buckeyes explode by themselves and fall.
spring, in Ohio, from his parents’ window,
the mother gone to work, the father
one year dead:
the grass leans up between the stones by the fence.
the schoolbus gone.
an ant crosses the desk carrying a small white crumb —

the desk where he’d find him
asleep
with a book wide awake
on his lap, those nights, thinking
it is natural therefore inevitable —
unaware, unaware
that grief
can never be rehearsed.