Sand ground into my shoulder blades. Scratch scratch on aluminum. I opened my eyes to a sky white on white. I blinked. Blue clouds with yellow edges. Against the hull of the canoe, lake water rocked and licked.

I think I’m sleeping, night long, more than I think,
And days blur like leaves in a pitch-long fall,
while clocks run on with numbers that always blink,

then flicker backwards. I close my eyes and sink
to dreams…

Elinor listened to the comforting sound of the car door latch sealing her in. Carpenter’s tools hung neatly arranged along the side wall, and shelves beside her held plastic bins marked “Robert’s Trophies.” His clay-clogged boots sat at the foot of the steps leading to the kitchen.

oh physics
of warped gluons in the matrix chromosomes
molding children with necks and knees

disjoint and attenuate physics of the transport
of chlorophyll far more certain
than law or reason

and the stopped blood of embryos

The car swayed gently through easy curves as the car slid south down the two-lane highway. The engine whispered, even at seventy-five miles an hour. David glanced at the map on the passenger seat, but he knew by heart where he was going. He pressed Play on the CD player sitting on the seat, and the Brahms Third Violin Sonata swam through the still air.

The old canoe rests on the sand
at lake’s edge, its stern still
in the water. How many

strokes of the paddle wore away
the varnish on the gunwales?
Many. So many. And years

of sunlight and rain. Years
of snow and wind.