Everything about us always
near and far nearly all
our lives a surprise then
at the front door
is that really you?
We do not move quickly
nor quietly, each with
our own signature
of gas and yakety-yak
yet we do somehow find
each other nearly always
on the garden roof,
backyard pines protecting
what we do.
Up in the sky
we barely hear a
word as the surprise
our old skins
brings quietly to the other.
In this junk time
isn’t it nice to gaze, whisper,
of that lovely couple, hanging
in portrait, in the Uffizi
in Florence, in July.
DeWitt Clinton teaches writing and literature in the Languages and Literatures Department at UW-Whitewater, and lives in Shorewood with his wife, Jacqueline. New poems of his will be appearing soon in Verse Wisconsin, a new journal from Madison. He is currently working on a series of poems based on 100 Poems from the Chinese.
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