She chases balloons
so high

in the sky when
she should have bought

a brownstone row house by now.
She reaches across

an immense empty

metal bucket to touch
a movable wall when

her fingers go numb
for a brief stretch.

When dark ridges
evenly spaced

between thin bars,
darker still,

conceal a silent wreck.
A naggingly familiar

terrain appears when
she closes her eyes:

the sycamore forest
where everything began.

The urge to drop
everything

into the void
to hear the hollow

drum sound explode
across a cavernous room

grows when
she opens them.

When marbles were rolling
beneath a butcher block

table faster than any boulders
she could flick away,

knuckles down. The ones
she polished

so religiously, so lovingly
that summer

when anything
that might interfere

with the physics
of lust was on

high alert. When a 360°
view of Vermont hills

was never enough.

The momentum of another
tabula rasa season,

when it was still possible
to collect Connecticut rivers

and streams and quarries
into a canvas cinch pouch

for safe keeping,
would not recur for decades.

When she stops
wondering if the blood

alleys ever reached the bottom
to nestle among so many rusted

motorcycles and shopping carts
protecting faded dinosaur tracks.