The Fog People
for Julian Bernick,

       What is remarkable is not how many have been lost,
drifting and starved, but the number who survive.

       The child who walked off into the mist

       becoming the ache in the center of his father's hands as he pushed
the long-handled broom down darkening corridors of light,

       the last few miles on the highways home to some northern city,

       the last thoughts of a woman crumpled in her car, drunk with pain and crying herself to deepest sleep

       sands and seas

       the luminescent graying of the sky

       steps back onto the beach, into our lives--or comes out somehow
on the other side of it all,

       with the knowledge of the willow shaken to the roots
by light rain

       a rain of light

       footsteps on the dock

       --a blind woman's cane tapped down the street, very quietly searching for echoes--

       Even now they are stirring, they are waking

       Listen, how the lovers, find each other with their hands, their mouths

       pull back

       and touch.