James Scannell McCormick

Maybe the quick green that curves along the

Heart of a flame.  Ember-blue scylla, gold

Flambeaux of narcissi under a coal-

Powder sky.

                        Years ago, just at summer’s

First cold edge, a man floored his Impala

Over the bluff and into the release

Of the ashblack flotsam below.  The sun,

That sometimes heals, has long since healed the gouged

Lawn and flattened junipers where the bluff

Plummets.  Today, a northeaster three days

Blowing;  the lake the color of graywacke,

Waves plangent, iterative:  Where are you,

Love?  Why do you never come?

I fell, like the man in his car, from this

Same bluff:  it’s rooty edge gave as I danced

In front of my brother.  He, four, smiled a

Little to see me spill, catch myself on

A rough ledge of clay and oak leaves.  Then he

Threw himself after me, past me, into

The unweakening wind.

                                                When I reached him,

Caught at the foot of a hawthorn, flowers

Still snuffed to buds, he looked up—no tears—and