Blackberry Orphan

who left these tattered shoes
beneath your gently swaying body
like two lifeless meadowlarks to decay,
a pair of death trinkets.
are they coming back for them
do you hope they have forgotten
and how stubbornly you hold
your fruit until it is dry and small,
not so the village boys who easily indulge
and just so eagerly forget,
i will see the life in you return along the spring
i will see the life in you return.
see, they swim in the river
how they pass without looking,
how they let the draft of the river
take them under the willows
is it not true that love
is born of this same tin can
the homesick migratory calm of
          window-glass,
          small-hatted children's songs and vanilla.
          the painted metal walk-bys
of a nested southern city
a mother's pride and loneliness in the path’s worn stone,
the colored chairs we misremember as a set,
the village children