I am only now learning to talk to you
as we sit on the porch, listening
to the tones of a wind chime,
and I wonder if memory can hold
to a thing, like chimes weathered
blue, dangling in the air,
playing without intonations of meaning.
We sit in plastic chairs and sip coffee
made from beans grown in Nicaragua.
We talk about the noises in the house
at night when one is alone.
I miss the children, you tell me.
I smile; you touch my arm.
A leaf falls.
We could go to Paris in April,
I say, or New York. Or dance
the tango in a parking lot
in Austin. We did that once.
People stopped their cars
and watched. We danced,
and people smiled.
Somewhere in the dust, the memory
of a woman slips into a room.
where she is once again beautiful.
The house full of laughter, then empty,
then full of laughter again.
On a table dried roses in a vase
cling to the stems.
Brady
from Between Stations