Back to School

Back to School

At what level do you learn to say 

two sisters, four and two, 

sweat-sheened and collapsed

to watch clouds on the trampoline 

under the riotous pink 

of a crepe myrtle? 

School goes back in weeks

and they'll look at me for answers,

though I've told them

knowing things doesn't pay well

as a career, the landscape

too shifting for job security.

If I'm absent at the bell

you'll find me here,

on the porch and tending

whatever thunderhead this is

simmering just below

the breast bone

before it explodes 

into a dinosaur, a ship, a joy 

so like grief you could see it

either way and still not quite

trace out the edges 

come time to point it out.