The Totality of Facts

The laughing gull that flew behind the fencepost
and never came out was the beginning
and then a space smaller than my hand covers Wisconsin
without any explanation
Hat in hand  head in hand  fish with an osprey in its back
emerges from the Sound where it had not been a second earlier
The book of her hair opens to its binding and I leaf through
the glorious pages of approval
These are neither the asks or the answers
Of what has been said these are beaming heat
and light and leftovers from so much of what happened
we could not turn fast enough to catch
like the swift figures behind you like a planet's dark
companion  ships entering and leaving the hall closet
the imperfect remembering-idolized salt—
one nation on the windowsill—the totality of facts
real and imagined between which is no difference.

Copyright © 2003 Allan Peterson All rights reserved
from Full Circle Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission