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Rounds
When I held my first son,
how perfect he seemed.
Driving home late,
we would sing rounds
O how lovely is the evening
his head nodding to my lap.
Blessings on that third
of our lives spent in sleep,
the plots of the day
left dangling.
Once I drove by a woman
clinging to a viaduct's ledge,
police, priest, and the curious
crowded below, the road
curving past into a benign
vista of cows and trees.
Blessings on those moments of reprieve
grabbed before dropping into nightmare.
How could my son fracture,
unaware of the split?
Ominous, the day I waited
on his porch, cake in hand
as if food could assuage
a mind reeling off.
Get out! Get out! The door slammed.
What I dread is a stand-off,
barricades, guns, police
with no choice but to shoot.
Blessings on the daughter
who ripens with a life
that turns us around again,
this time, we hope,
the helix of notes
descending in tune.
For a while we let pass
what Aeschylus said,
how at night
the pain that can't forget
falls drop by drop
upon the heart.
The moon floats off,
the dog whimpers under the steps.
How lovely the evening
with a child on my lap,
a circle of us singing
heedless of the dark taking aim.
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