Thin Places

Now in the minute, the river's break rising,
      after the turn in scuffed leaves at a mile and a half
            toward home, I see them again,
   
My parents strolling back from the dead,

      here to haunt me--the two thoughts leaping,
            lithe deer vaulting the rational fence.
   
In truth, I've seen them three times, each time
      my breath snagging in mid-inhale or out
            the man's shock of gray hair falling
   
just as Cecil's did, his thin shoulders and neck
      achingly familiar in their stiff bending
            toward her. And the woman could be
   
Norma's twin--her thick body, the limping step

      in white-soled shoes. The couple nears,
            pauses, and goes on sailing past,
   
each nodding with a smile. At least, now,

      they're holding hands--up close, the resemblance
            fades. Thin places, the Irish call them,

   
the places near a hawthorn where spirits
      pass back, squeezing like the sheep do,
            a spray-painted X in red or blue, through a gap
   
in rock, in time. The road out from Westport
      to Tully Cross, or this riverside, stateside place, neither one
            a landscape familiar to them, or known.