by Judy Kaber

For the slow stretch of highway under slight stars
the frames that hold lost fathers, black and white sisters.

For the chives, weeping in the garden,
yellow and wet with the burrowing season.

For the red squirrel who chatters after nuts
and follows my back with his eye.

For the sprinters, the joggers
the dog walkers, for all the movers of America

going always home, going with no more meaning
than the sounds given from one foot to another,

with no more intent than to move.
Let the jet stream carry my prayers.

Let the prayer be for the grey
that eases between the limbs of the trees,

that brushes my house in the unspent morning,
for the riotous waves dissolving on the shore.

Let the prayer be for all the shadows that slip
between us, for the words we do not say

for the thoughts that we hold like lit cigarettes,
dangling from our mouths, then drop and crush.

by Judy Kaber

After the timbers rotted
the roof fell in, the garden
became nothing but

a field of hay. We made
our way in, plucked memories
from buried air, wove

stories from broken
toys, discarded clothes.
Here is where you slept.

There the kitchen. We stare
out windowpanes crusty with
shells of dead beetles,

listen for the trilling of crickets
in odd corners. We stake out
the past, pour over scraps

of paper, watermarked words,
remind ourselves of who
we once were. The path

out is anything but clear.
Things break underfoot. Remind
me why we are not here.