Ditch
Along the blacktop a faded line marks the edge
where headlights drift to the damp, faint flow
of snow melt, trickling still in June,
and road tar catches in the remaining tread
on your secondhand tires, pitch
you have pressed fingers to, years ago,
and pulled a softened bit like a licorice taffy
and dared to chew, and spit black water
and watched the oily sheen
move downstream, asphalt grizzled
as a father's Sunday face, one day in seven
he went unshaven in white T-shirt and khakis,
a skein between his eyes and yours,
petroleum veil like the V-05
he combed through his hair
and whose odor you miss—the hair, the beer,
the ivory soap-scrubbed Sunday skin,
scent unlike the pitted road
your old car bounces down today,
reckless of the space between dashed yellow
and solid, county paint trucks
with their spray mounts lining up your life,
spattered on fender and white wall,
retouched boundaries you crossed unseeing
those hours spent dream-walking ditches,
nostalgic film of algae and small butterflies
stirred up in the car’s wake,
each pothole a little jolt of kindness
shaking you awake on the rutted blacktop.
Jenifer Lawrence
Sendoff
Let them say you were more bird than god,
less contrail than feather. Let them flail
over your closed gray eyes, buried Wednesday
in front of your children and friends.
A yard of satin envelops you, your new goats
are released to pasture.
On the cobbled path a red-eyed towhee
sifts beetle from leaf. Let the people
bundle sodden tissues into their pockets,
rocking you down into the earth. This.
This is the work of the living.
Bald eagles call across the treetops,
announce their presence
to the only and steadfast sky.