TWO POEMS

	—after Joe Wilkins’ “Evening Elegy”

I remember the old people marking time at camp,
sitting around the table as if it would fly away 
if they ever stood up, as if the weave of their stories 
would keep everything where it needed to be, locked
in place and secure against time, memory, decay. Every
fish brought to the table to clean, every deer carcass,
every decision made, or left hanging—the old men 
connected it all to the past, to whatever happened
before we arrived in that moment. Somehow, 
they had the gift of making everything the result of some
other thing, not so much judged but considered against
the past they shared, or kept alive at their table.
Every meal, every breeze, every sunrise connected
to another they’ve known already. Even the taste
of black duck stewed over rice, decades-old memory
attached to the present for all of us to share. 
All of it. Young or old. With them or dead.

My dad stayed with us
on weekends after my mother
passed. Every night
we’d hear him downstairs, talking
to Mom, not in any desperate
way, just patiently letting her
know what we did all day.
Some nights, he only
talked about what we’d eaten,
the gravy she would’ve loved,
the roux just the color she’d
want it. Other nights, we
could hear real joy in his
voice bragging about
how good my daughter was
at math or how one of the boys
had done something kind
for the neighbors none of us
knew. At first, the kids
worried about him whenever
they heard him, but after
a few weeks the sound
became a Sinatra tune
lulling all of us, ushering us gently 
from this place somewhere else.