At Most, 33 Verses

1: When mornings are warm enough for light jackets

And dew soaks through my sneakers

2. We drive the flat road from 911 Georgian Drive  apartment G

Across from the school

3: To a different flat road

Across from the corn field

4: To fly kites

5: Most days are breezy enough

6: Pink diamond kite

With a tail twice my height

7: Black and blue fighter kite

With a nose full of grass

8: A box kite we took out once

But never had the patience for

9: Sitting with our legs crossed

In the bed of the Ford Ranger

10: Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

11: I want milk

But drink a Coke instead

12: We won’t tell mom about the Coke.

13: One morning we drive past the kite field,

So far that road blisters up on itself,

14: And that day turns from orange

15: to yellow,

16: to a squinting glare

that makes the highway bob up and down like the ocean

17: back to orange,

18: and pink

18: Eventually putting itself to bed in the blue

19: The hospital is at the bottom of a one-lane road

Running against a sandstone ridge

20: There are signs that tell us to watch for falling rock

21: No one seems worried

So I hold on for all of us

22: There are two autumn days

We sometimes remember

23: One when I was born:

90 degrees in mid-October

24: One when my grandfather died:

90 degrees at the end of September.

25: He falls asleep

In the dull hum and humidity

26: When the sweat stops beading around his white-yellow hair

We stand in a half-moon to say goodbye

27: No one explains to me what this means

28: They wouldn’t after, either

29: Endings are the hardest things to name

30: That dull hum still washes over us,

Standing in that half-moon formation.

31: At Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter,

No signs tell us what to do.

32: We talk about the weather

33: No one seems worried,

So I hold on for all of us.