Return

How could you surprise me
after all this time?

We know the routes,
the routines, even the names
of flowers and particular

birds that come
to chant in our woods,

the way time trickles
in a brook and the stones
scarcely notice

being worn
away like moss

in a storm.

Yet I don’t have a name
for this: how your voice pearls

with a friend, sun
slanting

after death,

the only time
we’ll ever know this
particular day

or why the war

brings home
casualties like words.