Jay Hopler | love & the memory of it

spook not at the shook world w/all its viruses & murder
hornets
instead that summer evening call to mind when you drove
alone over iowa
the light in the fields how long it was how in love you were
w/it
& the air & the world & the girl that atomic girl you would
one day marry
or summon up a summer evening half a life from then &
the park by the river the way her laughter
echoed off the rocks
in sparks that sighed
into the water

it was she that lit the world just then
& not that ember of a sun
her light like a struck string fretting its zing against the picnic tables

may that be the music you hear
when they unplug the ventilator