I find a run in my panty hose and we stop
at Rite-Aid for another pair. In the car,
I inch into them, my white winter legs
bent like camel crickets on a highway
lined in forests cut clear. He’s watching
what he can: miles of stumps and saplings,
a road narrowed by cones. I take his hand
and want to wash it, smooth summer into it—
hydrangeas and hot sand from the press
of my thumb. We pass mountains
so worn we don’t look to see what houses
they’re hiding because our land is flat.
And when we reach the yard he’d mow
as a boy, muscadines still growing,
my stomach doesn’t growl. Brothers in black,
sister between them like they’d always
had those clothes. He goes on and I sit
for a minute in the car, think to call
my father, ask him something small
about tomorrow’s forecast, the distance
between planted seeds. But I open the door
and stretch my legs onto a ground expecting
frost, the first hard shovel of being broken.
Driving to the Funeral
