Hello Ice

Outside it smells of pumpkin
& chicken, xylophone tones
roll up the river, each note

a mirrored dust, a goalpost,
as daughters bounce off summer’s
nude shoulders, the idea of Mars

never quite landing & a WWII
navigator remembers his windless map
of stars. Something hidden coming out

readied for a moment in the middle
of us: the family station wagon’s
wooded sides riding Swan hills,

sun’s noon gown kept at respectful
distance. The rest of the thought
lost in the grass,

as an ice bucket shifts its portable
Saturday mid-rift, imaginary silver
birds & dark crickets