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I.
Pebbles in hand, I lean over the edge
dropping one at a time.
I see a reflection -
grandfather's Germanic face
staring up from the well.
The hidden gift
in the closet's darkest corner,
the bright canary in a darker corner.
I killed it.
I only meant to scare it, to see it fly, a blur
of white and yellow sailing.
Ceremoniously buried,
it flies from oak root to oak root,
through the veins in my head.
Goldfish swim there too, whole schools
gliding like lamplight.
Another stone
and grandfather's face
is a flock of geese,
and then another,
migrating home.
II.
At dusk I drive toward a cloud
past restless wheat fields,
and corn rows supporting the sky,
the dashboard the brightest star
on the horizon.
For a moment in the mirror
I can almost make him out,
my grandfather waiting there
in the darkness, smoke
clouding his face.
III.
On winter days I remember him
rolling it over and over,
the snow turning the glass
paper-weight milky.
I'd stand there, nine years old,
watching his large hands
finger it, searching for its seams.
On such days he'd lob it,
and beneath that opaque dark,
I could see the white burst,
like heaven gone mad.
Slowly the flakes drifted down,
would settle on a field
so white, so still I wanted
to walk out into it,
breath steaming into the cold.
IV.
The day after he died, wind rattled
in the roof gutters.
The clouds all changed course,
and children looked up from their open windows.
The rains came, and lake fish circled
to the top. The leaves flew,
and the long kudzu bowed
toward the east. I lay down, and sheets
like wings rose
from their lines,
and lifted over the rooftops.
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