…The life I learned from yours (I think)
fit no easy parameters, bore no titles,
fiddled with truths, and turned the land all lime,
a bright adhesive, so that I had to look away
and come here, where there are life jackets
and rules at least half of which go heeded:
no fishing, no dogs without a leash,
no dalliance or drizzling water on your head,
only sitting apart, making damp impressions in the grass,
like fully dressed figures in Luncheon on the Grass.
Yet there are no nudes (I see) just two sisters
rowing mother in a metal boat. There are no bathers
but geese going after the dark grass
behind a dumpster, each oily head buckled
on an opulent neck, one posted up front,
another at the rear, like question marks
in a Spanish sentence or lifeguards on the lookout for danger.
