with you counting the lightning
and my gray hairs
I witness the pond you skated as a kid
miss the turn
and fog the windows

your direction proceeding mine
a glorious road
of haphazard half glances
chilling me love
did you not know me as a younger self?
a reckless boy loving you
but not knowing
I know you in my bones
a past life?
like heat in the woods
or flooded river
I find you in everything now

we carried Lester's coffin
in a dredge of September afternoons

now
wearing his flannel
I blast god with Octobers wind
preparing grandpa for fire

red shimmer of sumac reaches me
through the echos of harvest
and Lesters ghost in a grain truck
oxygen mask and all