Your mother quiet as a chair
looks far off toward
the river’s edge
on some horizon past
New Jersey’s shore
she sees your father
coming back once more,
stethoscope in hand
his thumping heart all
awkward and unsure;
he falters in the mist.
This night your heart’s been
measured slightly off-course.
You rise and leave the uniform
behind and walk the endless
khaki streets beyond Grant’s Tomb
where pigeons scattered
on the dome disperse like sparks
in summer heat.
Coursing in your veins,
this is the secret
you carry to the end.
A wife’s no more a friend
than any tree,
the blood that hides the self
wide as any sea.
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