There were lies about returning and we imagined the sorrow  
of coming back not as we were but something like a tree   
bark bound  axe haunted  rooted and seeing through florescence  
lovers carving their names in scars 
or come out of tapestry from threads left over from a hunting scene 
a distant figure in Carpaccio hard to pick out from a meadow for brocade 
maybe awakening in a room entirely bouquets one wall see through  
of lace and glass and Nantucket just beyond  a wilderness  
reduced to a last line of bare trees  cars moving among them like deer 
Or how it really happened   no coming back at all   just waiting  
like a voice above a page   not even a face on water 
having expected joy  like a horse seeing the ocean and a beach  
after years of grass in a small fenced acre in Kansas