Doorbell: 5:14 AM
The policeman touches
my shoulder
undistilled dawn light
daughter-frightened-behind-me light
Car found on bridge
wallet inside keys
Your husband— was he depressed?
azaleas camellias rhododendrons
spill his hillside pink and a path
meanders through plum blossom froth
What does it take for a thing to be more than itself? A husband
leaves wife and children
moves to cottage of ripple ache earth hymn lightning
streaked coal
But this is my policeman at my door
with his words and forms and we drive to the little house
see the empty driveway shipwreck sheets
and hanging outside my husband’s closet
a pressed black suit
like a judge’s robe
sack of stars where the soul flinches.
