The New Criterion

I don’t remember Garda in that summer,
The color of the lake, what sky there was.
I’ve seen the slide of Mother with sunglasses
Inside a crater we scooped from the sand
To hide ourselves from the mountain wind.
And my father gone, this time to Venice.
A snail on an apple leaf I can recall,
And a German boy I later hit with a hammer.
I’m told it was lovely that June among the grasses—
That, evenings, we heard strands of music fall
Spattering across the lake from the far shore.
One day I sat with my toddler sister
Sucking blue-striped figs on the dock’s landing,
Toes angling close to the skin of the water.
A black snake unspooled from the reeds;
His gleaming muscle doodled dreamily
Toward us, sunlight trailing off in feathers.
We raised our heels and let him pass beneath,
Watching him thrust along, unzipping the water.
Mot ...

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