Heartstones

We waited for something afterward,
clairvoyance having proved insufficient.
You were inconsolable; I, furious with boredom.
(We'd even tapped the maple trees that winter,
desperate for the tastes of long ago, sweet,
sticky on tongues and mittens.)

We filled pages with heart-stopping entries,
reclaiming irony, itself seldom seen,
having withdrawn to a respectful distance
at the behest of innocence, blue-eyed
and like us, awaiting something.

That was the long winter of abrupt endings,
shaken from a dreamless, shallow sleep.
I'd hear it in shivered mirrors of moonlight;
even with shades drawn, it filtered in.
You called it justice, for heads that crash
against the glass, ceilings thwarted,
bits of clotted brain and bloody cartilage
swept briskly from lapel and collar.

This morning, garden birds squabble over
seeds I sprinkle on the heartstones,
smoother than the day you quarried them.

I read, return the books you borrowed
on your quest to find the story.

Long overdue, you'd said.