lake michigan

lake michigan

What shall we find when we return?

Friends changed, houses moved,

Trees perhaps, with new leaves.

Robert Bly

we linger over a late lunch,

around the corner from the

hospital where our son was

born, we decide to walk north

along the lake to the place, a

knee, a ring, a beginning

twenty-nine years before

we start down michigan

avenue, past our favorite

date place, cassoulet, baked

whole garlic bulb, grilled

scallops, now a bank, we

pass a street where we

think a friend lived

was it here or on the other

side of the street?

we stroll on streets where

we walked our baby girl

in blizzards, when snow

crawled up wheels and

we pushed into wind,

toward a lake, unfrozen

where was the park where

we pushed her in a swing?

then toward along the lake,

full of families and frisbees

and puppies running in sand,

we finally fix on a spot or

what looks like the spot, the

knee, the ring, the interrupted

conversation about solzhenitsyn

and gulags, then wedding then

tears of joy

we take our stiff older bodies

bodies down cement steps,

toward the water, do a kissy face

selfie for our kids, as if to

say--hey all these years later

mama and papa still love each

other and we get awwwwww

texts right back

we watch a young couple

couple packing up their day

out, their lunch and chairs,

their cooler with seltzers

and snacks, their tanned

skin, their smiling eyes

and just then a kaleidoscope

of dragonflies diving and

dipping, their wings golden

in the light of late afternoon sun

i look back to the city, but

really back to me, then turn

away from the lake and reach

out my hand for help up the

leg-size cement steps