James Engelhardt
He Has Been Found
We had been looking for days
and before that hours,
and we were hoping
that it would not take a week
or longer.
We were hoping
that there would be a break
in the lostness,
that the lostness would be a small thing
something fragile and short-lived
like frost on the food we leave outside
for the neighborhood cats,
the cats who fade in and out of focus
like my cousin taking pictures
at our friend’s wedding.
Later, there were no photos
that the bride could use.
But he has been found,
and we are grateful
because we had missed his hands
and the ways that he used his hands
to clean vegetables before dinner
to change the oil in the car
and the diapers on the new baby.
He has a way of getting lost
that’s never permanent, but we worried
when his rent came due
and payday had been two days earlier.
Then the sun came up red
the day the potter found him by the river.
He has never left for long
and has always returned like a full moon
bringing strawberries
and out-of-date ice cream
What I Can Tell You About the Future
I can tell you that there will be geese
flying north and then south. And hatchlings
that will fight through their thin walls
to drop shivering and blind onto twigs.
Today I watch the wind twist crisp leaves
and pattern clouds into runes.
I capture fireplace smoke in a glass
because it’s the only way
I will see the faces of my grandchildren.
I’m watching time spiral out like ribbon
into a past I can never revisit and a future
as arbitrary as a dropped string.
But I hear the hum. Some strung wire buzzing
in the breeze as the geese row the air
into another now that I want
to be the next step of knowing
what will come after. I’m trying to keep up,
but I’m on a swing—forward, back, the air
like a song. Above me, smoke drifts, breaks apart.
Soon, the hatchlings will take flight.
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