Everything On A Line

by David Cazden

Walking to school,

we wore tee shirts

the color of overcast skies.

We even walked in the rain

as the clouds' spare change

fell like the luck 

of the young, jingling inside us

as we stood at the lunch counter

over green melamine plates.

Then back the same way―

over backyards, under hedges,

by a dilapidated fence

of honeysuckle 

where only bees could see us―

buried in soft yellow flowers,

dizzy with pollen.

When you left

the spring light stayed,

strung in a line

from April to summer

where I hung all the days―

pinned with my sheets 

and loose shirts

flapping over the yard.

Sometimes I watched 

mourning doves settle 

like ghosts on the line

and even after taking the clothespins

off our old afternoons,

bringing everything in,

the doves remained,

folding their wings,

huddling into the night―

thin-boned bodies

fluttering to life—

transforming to air,

then to the gleam

of the sunrise.