~ANN FISHER-WIRTH~

HAPPINESS

---

The walk that afternoon came to nothing

they could measure. At the end of the road,
a gnat-flecked lake.  He descried a heron,

far among the trees, but though she tried

she could not see it. They walked back home,
past sumac crimson on bitten branches,

weather-scarred bottles junked in ditches. 

That night she lay beneath him and he held her face,
caressed her jaw until she yawned 

and yawned, body and soul released, at peace.

There would be a last time but this was not it, yet,
this dusty season of goldenrod and asters,

this hour in a high white bed.

   

© by Ann Fisher-Wirth