The Paris Review

Moving away from rattled towns,
gaining, as a bird in a dishwasher,
an altered view, the owlish lakefronts
with their punch-clock crews

seem less luckless, the lunch-pail
chatter less dim; even recess seems pleasant.
Schoolmates from the third grade call
and nothing since matters,

you leap into kerosene waters
and swim, leaving the nervous talons 
on a perch. The past doesn’t hurt,
the past is divine, everyone

the same age at the same time. 
Moving is a white lie, a soft arrow.