It’s summer again in the small
museum on Dvořákova…watch this
light, how it plays on a plastic bag
let on a ledge  
how my mute limb wants 
like cold hands to crawl anything inside


I’m looking
for the building with backyard statues,
goes by the name ‘Americka’


An old man turns to lock his door, old enough that his
mother, when she wasn’t bent over a supermarket
cart—her silver zeppelin trawling the long aisles,
welcoming as if with sleighbells the weekly beef steak
sale—she might, coming home again, both arms laden
with cloth bags, have seen his bearded face rounding
the corner, the composer-son with a pipe in his pocket,
one of his daughters chatting at his side…


Funny the things in our pockets, the way that time burns through…


On the podcast they said there is only always one
beloved and one who loves; after many screenshots an
acquaintance
guffawed six emojis and texted Right on, Keep on
entertaining him…


And when the tune comes on, we’ll say violins are carved
from sailing ships—like this one, fleeing harbor somewhere outside
America, inside Amerika, where on a small screen the
composer disembarks, then disappears
behind a catalpa tree 
in the morning mists of Spillville.


The photo of this tree
diminishes what swaying
leaves recall.


We linked arms and I thought the word: balustrade.


He liked it here, in Iowa.
Placard says he went on long walks up and down the river.
God says its summer again. I’d say you’re up late,
leaning back on metal rungs, your eyes
like weekend deer.