Only to the squirming on the
path, gray-white, gray-white.
Only to hear a jogger say Must be
a pet someone left.
Only thinking How can a rabbit
sideways with a crooked neck and
fleshed-shut eyes have an expression, sweet and curious, like a kid
holding
a paintbrush?
Only wondering, Should we call a
vet, the city truck?
Only to keep walking past the
historical orchard and the brick-faced
treatment plant to the silver bridge craning the tracks.
Only to be suspended over the
ocean, deep shake like scrap metal
thunder
hurled up through the legs when someone else steps on.
Only to see, Tide’s in, no sand
for walking farther down.
Only hoping it wouldn’t be there
coming back.
Only up again past gray-white
flashes on a bramble-salal background.
Only from farther away it would
have looked like bread,
loaf set
on the ground before leaves in a still life.
Only toward home, at a clip.
Only remembering Mom said she
fell the other day, in her own house
putting on her pants.
Only that Old Ladies, she has
learned, should not have little rugs
by their
beds – the knots of the fringe make them trip.
Only aerobic and weight bearing.
Only on with the calcium, greens,
Multi-, Complex.
Only to feel the day, air open
from all sides, bright, the gooseberry
buds fat
as nuts.
Only rounding home to see a
house, ka-boom, on the corner, backhoe
tossing
a roof panel down to break it up.
