Peter Campion New Hampshire: Two Returning This seems to be their spot. They return each night.
By moonlight, or street-lamps, they take long glances
up the hill, as if setting something right.They like the older houses: all the lancet
windows and lattice work on private lanes
climbing the ridge.
A view downward through pines:
the stranded freight cars with their doors chained.
Below the tracks, a river. Shattered spine
of birch blurs under water.
Sometimes he sees
her eyes the way they were. Sometimes in the glow
of strangers’ yellow curtains he can catcha glimpse of how it was. He turns from the road.
And then their car careening through the trees.
Her irises blue, contracting like a cat’s.
Originally published in
Other People (U of Chicago, 2005)