Sometimes at breakfast a face or two: a magazine
I took from the dentist’s, an interview

with an actor. Lately, getting ready
to go out, I am sure I see the familiar arc

of your body through the screen of the back door,
raking leaves under the maple

again, whatever
that says about me. Now when I go,

I go out the front and into the streets; there are birds there.

It isn’t loneliness, but close; solitude, the way Pam
says we deal by methods that are more

or less practical. Walking,
I feel strangely connected, followed by geese awhile.

It’s the credits of a film about being young
told many years after.

Walking toward a bridge not yet in the frame.