DAILYSOMETHING

A Sestina for Caddy

The warm trees are rainy with summer chill. I hold it
And pass it behind and down. Mel and Bijou watch me
And run ahead of them and stop to sniff. She
Turns to the white dress, the black hairs and whispers to her
And she turns with the sky and the trees to laugh also.
It buzzes and carries me past them and around them.

The curb is marble, wet. Flowers are beneath them.
Bijou and Mel stop to hear it buzz and watch it
Buzz quietly and watch it buzz under me also
Through the flowers and the flower fence. They pass me
And catch up with Bijou and Mel and I see her
Running a palm over the white fringes of the dress she

Will want to buy three years later. The curb is wet. She
Is not here at night and I watch airplanes. One of them
Hides in the swaying branches. A bus rears. For her,
The moon shines somewhere. I look up and it hits me
And I hit it. And it pushes and carries me also.

She was alone and she saw them and me with it also.
She jumped of the ledge and I said. I missed you Caddy. She
Said, me too! Do you want to go up and you show me
How to hit it and let it carry me? We left them
Down and went up to the flag. She took it and I gave it
To her and she kicked it. And it hit her and carrier her.

We went up to the rock to see cars float. It was behind her.
Then the rock was hard and cold so it was under her also.
After the cars were trees and the river. You want to share it?
She asked, and so it was under us both. The rock is wet. She
Said, do you feel as though all had happened and you know them?
And I said and didn’t touch her and she didn’t touch me.

The streets cool and clear out for us and she carries me
Here to the night grass and the night sky is all over her.
Their night music reaches us and we hear them
Speaking, but we can’t hear them or the cars or the airplanes also.
We don’t bother the ground much and crawl deeper. She,
The undertow, the fleeting beetles, and I, without it.

Oh there it is, she said, and pulled me and carries me,
To the great oak, where she split apart and I found her
And I found the moon also, and it didn’t shine for them.