WALKING BACK FROM BALLET, JUNE 17

by Lyn Lifshin

next week the days
will already be
getting shorter,
the dark starting
its way back in.
Past the pond,
wood ducks and
geese, fireflies.
That glittering my
sister and I reached
for in the dark. If
we still talked,
we might remember
those scratchy
army blankets.
How the night sound
merged with the
clink of ice in a
glass. How we’d
never have supposed
there would be
more years not talk-
ing than the ones
when we did