Flycatcher

Only a Long Time Ago

Like moths that stuck
to a dog’s nose after inquisitions.
That could be my first memory,
or the invention of memory itself.

Dusty corpses of moths.
Like it’s summer or something.
Or the beginning of a new century,
and I’m just about to be born.

A deck moans under foot
and is chipping paint but softly.
The dog’s claws thrum the wood
in the manner of reveille––I fall in.

Grass as green as a fat jungle leaf,
spears thrummed and wetted
by the dog’s nose. It goes with the wind,
fore and aft like metallic fuzz
beneath a magnet.

I still live here, only a long time ago,
when the water was still high
so I could skip stones, but flat ones,
like this beauty, yes, she’s perfect.