The last time I saw
his silhouette in that red-

stained field of coquelicots,
I was just sixteen or so,
and unfamiliar with regret. 

In France they call them
coquelicots, and that day I saw
just how they grow,

in Breton fields at random,
rather than in rows.

For 150 million years birds saw
their reflections only in the sea,

but now the last typewriter repair
shop in New York is going out

of business, and monk parrots
nest in Sheepshead bay.  Still

that fire escape casts a lovely shadow,
the way the wheel of a slow-moving

bicycle seems to slow time,
gorillas stay up all night to groom
their dead, and a woman in Ohio

who’d been laid off gave every building
in her town a new coat  of paint. 

What’s your name?  I asked
the woman at the post office
who takes my packages
and tells me about her cruises
to the Bahamas with her mother
and sister, and how much they love
the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Grace, she said, I thought you knew.