Days in a week, deadly
sins, cardinal
numeral,
the Sabbath,
veils, virgin
daggers,
sacraments

spill onto the eighth
month. Only three
of them can stain
that late summer
block of moments.
Three of them
going back in time:

August 27, 2012
At civil dawn
my father gasps, slips
into death
for infinity.
The saddest relief
shuttles through my veins.

August 7, 2012
Twenty days before
I lose my father,
a rupture
inside your head
kills you. You see infinity.
Return to this.

And the third one
in another century:

August 17, 1980
In a half
circle, friends
drink beer
in your family’s kitchen
the night our eyes
first meet.

Never
mind
infinity,
time
collapses
urgently,
immediately.

We go
forward, backward, sideways
in a trance—
desperate to remember
how it feels to be so young,
to still believe
we are immortal.