Slipping through the brush
With my walking stick of ash
The turning light
Filtered through the canopy
Freckles the forest bed
It is good to be back
I feel my way along the property line
Run a blind hand over the cool wall
Smooth weathered and pink as granite until
It breaks a lightning stricken wound
And there
Bursting from the absence
Is a strawberry bush

So I bend down and
Quietly as I can
Snap a strawberry from its stem --
Just the sound of it makes me start, look up,
Sharp like I think someone's watching and…
I see you there
Your head tilted up
In a halo of light
And we break from our pleasure
Acknowledge one and other
Odd silhouettes in a dying savage light
Kaleidoscopic and calculated as tiger stripes
We greet as civilians, neighbors, strangers
Who knew each other once
We smile
The winds pull back the canopy, brush away
The shadows that striped you
And made you
Interesting
I watch the blood run
Out of your face
Good evening, I say