People don't change
Their masks do

We counted seventeen that morning,
driving in circles around Greenbelt Park.
Biding time before preschool drop-off,
we moved in measured paces beneath
a verdant canopy of oak and Virginia pine,
crossing diminutive rivulets repeatedly,
revisiting the same downed tree limbs
and tired park signs, disappearing and
reappearing in mist, our languorous
revolutions seemingly interminable,
each lap lost behind our slipstream.

It was a game we played together,
my daughter and I, circumnavigating
that slight road and counting the deer.
We tallied the bucks, does, and fawns
in plain sight, either ignorant or bold.
Vigilant, we watched for minuscule
movements beyond the windshield,
subtle stirrings in the understory:
a foreleg caught in a confusion of ferns;
a white tail, brazen, above the blueberries
or hovering, a clump of cotton atop holly;
caramel eyes cupped in mountain laurel—
ephemeral proof, woodland intimations.

Most days, we saw nothing
but familiar creatures as we
circled, spinning our wheels.
If we parked on the shoulder,
the black ribbon of bitumen
seemed to move beneath us still,
a vinyl track playing under tires,
daughter and I locked in place—
two diamonds at the tip of a needle,
skipping across prosaic grooves.

But the morning of the seventeen!
The moon hung dilatory in the sky,
a winking crescent eye, opaline.
And with each loop, the number grew.

-------------------------------------

Two years later, I circle back,
my daughter and I walking
toward a black fishing pier,
gulls etching invisible lines
into an aquamarine sky.

I ask her if she remembers
those rides before preschool,
if she remembers the morning
we saw those seventeen deer.
We pause, waves washing
white sea foam over our feet.  
She looks beyond the breakers,
taking in the horizon’s hard line,
a crisp indigo seam that appears
to stitch the round world straight.
One hand rests on her bony hip;
the other grips a shell-filled pail.
She turns, sizing me up with the
cold skepticism of a six year old,
and shakes her head in disbelief.
She tells me I’ve got it all wrong:
It couldn’t have been that many.

I’m tempted to argue. Instead,
I ask her, why does that number
(seventeen!) seem too high.

She looks at me, incredulous.
What am I trying to prove?
She speaks in small measures,
makes herself perfectly clear:

We were driving
in circles, Daddy,
and the deer,
the deer,
they move.

At once the horizon bends,
azure arc in space and time;
gulls stall in midair, snapshots
above suspended breakers. Silence.
Suddenly I’m back in Greenbelt Park,
treading nimbly, veiled by ivy screens,
leaping broken dogwoods cantilevered
over precious shallow streams,
muscles, ears, and eyes electrified.
I see as the unseen eighteenth deer
would have seen us—two creatures
harnessed in a restless death machine,
recumbent gods marking territory.

Around again. Wait.
Another close orbit.
Scrutinize red taillights
fading to distance and
then explode, vaulting
across alien asphalt,
hard halo of misery:
unnumbered,
exalted,
infinite.

I woke up today in a house, a house I knew was my own but looked much different than I remember. The kind of house one sees in dreams, unfamiliar yet definable. In some way or another. I was tangled in a bed of sheets that had clearly been slept on for months without cleanse. Painted with ****** secretions, ranging from love-making to menstruating. Ash, from pipes to papers. Make-up, from nudes to noirs. You, a stranger, walk in with a giant bowl of cereal and two spoons. You knew it was my favorite, but I didn’t know you. But I knew you, you know? In some way or another. I wanted to call you a name, but it didn’t seem fitting. Maybe it belonged to a memory, what was that memory again? Oh, I don’t know. But you looked at me like we had shared so many memories that we became a new name. You spoon-fed me Wheaties and folded your feet between my legs. You kissed me and whispered a Van Morrison tune, “I never knew the art of making love ‘til my heart yearned with love for you.” And that’s when I knew.

I shoot up from the bed, leaving a concave within the foam mattress, and eye the carpet as if my feet were going to fall through.

“Hardwood. This is supposed to be hardwood.”
“What?” your eyes follow me in confusion.
“Be quiet.”

I grab a loose end of carpet near a corner and start tearing it up from its bonds. Low-and-behold, blonde hardwood sat quietly beneath it, as if it’s been waiting for me to unearth it. Unearth you.

You.
I buried You.
Everything started rushing back to me.

I get up unsteadily and tear down the wallpaper to find a screen playing back every memory. The faire. The zoo. The restaurant. The concert. The park. The bed. Our path. A doorway. A starry night under a deck. Loose cigarettes and empty bottles. A volume so loud I can’t hear myself assess. A voice echoing off every wall; “I love you’s” in infinite delay. “I hate you’s” in infinite succession.
I’m running through this half foreign house now trying to find You. Who, what, and where are You? You’re nowhere to be found. I’m searching behind every door, rustling through every nook and cranny, tearing down every trinket of décor. I’m falling to my knees and crying in my palms. Where are You?

I cry every last drop from the ocean of despair within me, open my eyes, and let the reality sink in:
This house is empty and You’re nowhere to be found.

the Sun shines on all you do
what's a few clouds
between friends.