Shroud (w/ Mayflies & Trash Cans)

Our neighbor of 18 years took out his trash& was found dead an hour laterof a burst heart by his wife. My mother,going to the mailbox, was the lastto see him alive. I receive thisthrough a phone, along the bank of a riverup north, watching mayflies hatch as orangeseeps through the bass belly of the sky,everything strum in the still sear& delicate unleaved trees.The Dutch spent decades practicingthe precise veneer of painton grape skin, to let you see the translucentclump of fruit within. He'd talkedof retirement, of moving to Floridato be around his grandkids. This is howwe fear my father will go; the heart,that tangerine in the chest, that fruitturning itself back to blossom. The heart,terrible engine of metaphor. Stretchingto hold the whole world it reachesto the throat, the oft-mentioned lumpits vanguard of leaving the body, which isrejecting anything that could bring it such pain.In the river bank: mayfly molts, flecks of micaone could mistake for holding sky.Later, the Dutch started adding flieslike those buzzing on the trash canswhen the cops questioned my motherto construct a timeline, a time he was here& a time he wasn't. They said ma'am,calm yourself when all she could rememberwas that he always wheeled the cans aroundso the lid opened away from the garbagemen,away & not towards, away & not towards.