Kids splash in the fountain as the honey locust scatters

its coins of summer light. The hole in time would drop you

into another year. But let the reckless sun

slip its slender fingers through the grass.

Your loneliness: put it away.

Rest for the heart’s republic, its tired populace

stretched out under the elm trees, cooking meat on grills.

Dogs tug at their leashes and kids spill

laughing, off their bikes. Take what little solace

you can take: the dappled dirty river, new freckle

on your wrist, the crevice of a knee

still damp with sweat. Name the plants

whose names you know: giant coltsfoot, celandine. Jewelweed,

next to nettle, cures its sting. Make of yourself

a solstice: resolute

and botched, if only for this hour

that meters day from night. The few things

that remain to you—that elegy, that disobedience—

cannot be taken now. You have grown in

around them, like a thicket

in a minefield. Like an oak tree

twined with stone.