Waiting for a Bennington light to change, I
saw, last week, a girl lean against a woman,
both blond, standing outside a supermarket.
Mother, bent over,
asked some question (all this I saw; heard nothing).
Before the light turned, I had divined the problem.
When she lifted her face to her mother: Bingo.
It was a nosebleed.
It’s still bleeding a little, the daughter answered
as we drove away. And I know the mother
bent again to offer the child a second
Kleenex and kiss her.
Green light, green hills, we’re driving north, it’s summer.
Law enacted fleetingly in a rear-view
mirror no less powerful for its local
interpretation:
love as rocking cradle that two can rest in,
bodies nested, cupped in one curve of shelter;
question, answer; need met as it arises.
Trouble breeds comfort.
