Ö

Shape the lips to an

o

, say

a

.

That’s

island

.

One word of Swedish has changed the whole neighborhood.

When I look up, the yellow house on the corner

is a galleon stranded in flowers. Around it

the wind. Even the high roar of a leaf-mulcher

could be the horn-blast from a ship

as it skirts the misted shoals.

We don’t need much more to keep things going.

Families complete themselves

and refuse to budge from the present,

the present extends its glass forehead to sea

(backyard breezes, scattered cardinals)

and if, one evening, the house on the corner

took off over the marshland,

neither I nor my neighbor

would be amazed. Sometimes

a word is found so right it trembles

at the slightest explanation.

You start out with one thing, end

up with another, and nothing’s

like it used to be, not even the future.