Here, we said, in this place.
Here we will bury our dead.
While the winter leaves rot
still and drift in the clouds
of ice that spread in the black
water, the lake a full night
pulled taut as a wet sheet
over a face. The face a hole,
a sucking cave, where the sun
sinks and sets the lake ablaze.
The blaze troubled by the dog
whose wake parts the dream
of the one mirror surface,
who’s broken the bloodshot
heavens open, his head buoyant,
rippling through rippling trees
for geese while the geese remain
beyond, lifting their dripping
necks and wings from shadow
wings and necks, the pointer
treading after, a race to break
the breach, the closing leave
in reach as muscle gives way
to the wide in the deep. Easy,
the flock takes flight as one
each time. Easy it knows.
Easy is faithful.