the fossil record

<<28>>

Endgame

Here you drive country roads
in a beater. You watch
poplars collapse in the rear view mirror,
green long into autumn.
Your children's children
play in meadows
beyond the shoulder of the lane.

Like ivory, their complexions---
and those eyes, deeper
than pawns, into which
you've fallen
and become a pupil.

Here you find yourself
asleep at the wheel
in a dream of driving.
Scents waft from dried flower bouquets
sitting in the back seat
like passengers---
the money plant
expectant with its transparent
circles, the statice blued to indigo.

Here you are overcome
with losing and getting lost.
The landscape both familiar
and difficult to fathom,
your car burns in sunlight
like the wing of a jay
flushed from its perch in time.

You recognize points
along the way, know
points become a line first
and later a fruit: cherry or pear.
When cut, the halves
lie on an imaginary counter,
the miles pile up
and your back aches
with the pain of living upright.

How to leave this dimension
with your rook gone,
your queen exposed
to the masculine world?

Judith Skillman