It is always some northern state.

Michigan. Minnesota. A road, two lanes,

in a soft twilight. Tame woods

on either side, railroad tracks

that run parallel, and a house,

looming into the aerial camera’s eye,

turning, now, on the table

of its own clearing—

The people, standing outside.

The dog beside them,

tight on its leash. The one

police car, red light revolving,

and somebody pointing,

into the trees—

And the camera tilts, then,

and turns like a ball in water,

first to the tall, dusky grass; then

upward and out, back to the road,

onto the black seams in between

plots and fields; little lights

on the lake’s near shore;

already, faintly, two or three stars—

I was thinking about the country,

how it tends to look, onscreen,

when we record our lonelinesses.

The people. The air. The dog’s

infinite goodness. The midsummer light,

blue, the house benign, perfect—

a vase of flowers, daisies,

seen in a window; then the small sign

marking the county line, and again

the pan, of the woods—

But there’s the woman, crying now.

Her hand half across her mouth,

the dog gazing up at her,

the too-bright light in her face.

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