Clay Pit Pond

Focus first on the black trunks, then the snow
that beats the ripples, then the wind-whipped flag,
the high school’s streaked cement and darkened glass,
like the building I would have trudged up to
twenty-five winters past. He tugs to move,
snuffling his first snow; everything’s a first
for him–hunched ducks on logs, the distant train.
In my ears, Albinoni’s oboes step
lightly, unruffled by the imminent
coda, and take the repeat serenely,
even though poor old Tomasso’s been dead
(of diabetes) more than two hundred
sodden Venetian winters. The coda comes,
the dog pulls me homeward, and where we’d stood,
the patient snow melts back into the waves.