A green light that comes

when you never saw it coming, never

heard it, felt it, but you knew it

 

like the woman in the sandlot

behind Abram's Grill

who's just lost her lenses,

on her hands and knees, her

hair cut short but seems as if

it's flowing, and the rush

on her throat like a rise

from birth, the music in the car

 

as the engine goes silent

while you fold down a seat

for the stashed beam lantern

with it's yellow plastic grip, six

Ray-O-Vacs, the

movement in the trees

beyond Lake Michigan. It's

 

a wave like that

when the wind gets lost

and the mail-boat from Racine, three

hours late, cracks into a tanker,

where the crew, like you, has

waited on the decks, in the hold

for two months out, to send

 

a message home-or to get a

certain scent, for just one instant,

of weeds, in the dirt, the both

 

of you groping.