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 catch

a 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)

 

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