By an attendant memory      she is walking

alongside the child on his cycle

obeying the familiar path that curves toward

the gaslit entrance before reaching

the broken birdbath and the markers

of Blythe, Horsfall, and Potter

whose stone is hard to read

for the gargantuan hydrangea.

   Dispelled

by a continuous shuttling back and forth

downstairs      sound of water being drawn.

Wet-headed;

seated      on a metal chair

holding an extension cord

her clothes swarm the floor.

Be the shoulders dusted as shoulders can glare

commotion of morning grows      insistent.

Be the credits opened boldly.

Be the air expanding at supersonic speed.

Be the windows let up and the centenarian tree dependably there; be

—C. D. Wright (1949-2016)

This is drawn from “The Essential C. D. Wright.”