August at Essex

Get home. You can’t have it here
at the matte burgundy picnic table,
because there are gift shops all around

and you don’t want to be sitting around
when all the kids get off the train
they’ve boarded.

They’ve boarded with expectations
and some of them will be fulfilled.

Get home before you have to watch the
joy with a smiling face
because your fake smile is spooled
around the trees when they exit the dinner train.

Wrapped around the trunks, lit up
Christmas lights in August too tight
to be unraveled.
But the children will try

to unwind your smile from under the leaves
until you can be nothing but genuine.

Until you can do nothing but admit
you’ve known true innocence once, too.

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