Two Poems
Fledges
That was the year fledges dropped
like peaches
The dog killed one
The lawnmower another
That was the year of the 72-hour hold
That was the year your stepmother
was pregnant and you ran away
your note said
to drown yourself
in a deep mountain lake
You said My body will never be found You said Don’t look for me
Oh birdie
Oh child for whom we circled and called
These torn nests
how alike to one another they all appear
when the birds are gone
in fall
Mistakes I Made
Son, red-eyed
from visiting stoner cousins,
announces
his grand ambition:
ski patroller,
shares his resistance
to college.
I should have raised him
Mormon,
or something.
Instead I taught him
evergreen whispers,
moonlight on a tilting
meadow, the holy feeling
of the powder turn.