Driveway

Like the little lines that

all at once appeared around

your mouth and eyes-

faintly placed, implacably-

out of the street's deep arc

the drives of pale gray gravel

fan into family yards.

All of which was orchard

twenty years ago, and the lumber

neither cut nor cured

which is this house. Twenty years:

a closetful of movies-

birthdays, anniversaries-

which you, accruing

the lengthening tapes, played

night after night on the screen.

But this was the final

New Year: the tree, dismembered,

forever green in its carton,

and you backing the last time

down the snowy drive,

rolling it up on the reel

of yourself, as if you would find,

when your rear wheels hit asphalt,

not tax money, stitches, braces,

hours floundering

in the wedding bed, but chaste earth,

blossoms falling, some bird.