Lines for Emily

Have remembered you me and you
Who braid in dream fibers the ordinary broom,
Breathed across the sidewalk under afternoon,
And stoop to hold the long awaited post, ruined
By every necessary step
That daily hits the Avenue;

Or the clock shattered in the square
Fallen by lovers’ private fame, then forced
Quietly under the maple flames
Of autumn and winter’s nowhere?

With evening, now, children clear the ground.
They play a game of rings and stones.
This, an old delight in change and chance,
Bemoans our place:
Not the Avenue, the waning light,
But what we share, our hands.

Daniel Schillinger


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