Waiting on the porch for the milk horse and wagon, gripping
a cube of rationed sugar and my grandfather’s rough thumb.
Or at Hayama, after the typhoon: clinging to my big brother’s back
as we ride a giant wave on the air mattress.
Our new-born’s eye opens in an owlish scowl.
My wife and grown daughters walk up the dirt road,
laughing. Lamb and mint jelly whenever my father is away.
Let it suffice thee, Milton’s angel says, that thou know’st/
Us happie, and without Love, no happiness.
Away, then with Old Confusion, who unlearns me
my constellations, and blinds me
to all that happens when nothing happens. Not
the shining moments that stand apart—
the ordinary crystals of a lunch at noon.
Liza picks up a fretful Ivan in the crook of her arm,
jiggles him calm, and goes on with the story,
the backs of her long fingers lightly burned by sun.