Divides

Even a broken window separates the kitchen
from the garden as sharply as my eye
separates me from surfbirds on a breakwater,
even when I take off my glasses
and the surfbirds are gray smudges on black.

An old photograph is a divide
without edges, out of focus, stained
and faded. On the other side
of the divide is a corral,
great-grandfather J D

and his friend Ray,
Ray is the tall one with a hat.
Betty runs down the beach to watch the gray
smudges spin into the air and settle down
on the back side of black.

My stained and faded memory is a photograph
of a life out of focus.
A broken window in the sand
separates most of Betty.