I went back tonight
with shadow and and the rush of the river.
I let myself be drawn
by that old magnet
and a lilac-like nostalgia.

In the dapple
made even darker by leaves
who heavy, reach across the streetlamp,
I stand at the fence. Its nightshade clad arms
square nine-hundred hours and hang humid
in the after-storm air.

We are familiar,
each to each other,
still.
They smell of rain.
I smell of longing.

The slim row is fertile.
I know it all in the blue-black,
even without stepping in;
wilds of raspberry
over a carpet of smiling straw-bonnets
and a riot of yarrow,
so outrageous that he's had to put a picket fence around.

Time curves in
to kiss itself
and I'm standing here,
again,
feeling loneness so large
it's as if
I'm the only living child in summer.