I find tiny moons inside the clam shells
on the shore.
Mackinac planetoids.
The Grand Hotel hovers above Lake Huron
on the slope behind me.
A regal crane of indelible white.
I get here now and then.
Unexpected rendezvous.
Being here is like the pause
of passing countryside,
featureless sea in the middle of oblivion,
blue, hypnotic sky,
and then I find myself
on the hotel’s veranda,
with chips of time in my pocket,
heavy with alloys of sentiment
and alluvium,
a gray table of lake
for moving my chips to the center
and playing the last of them.
A man’s serious love affair
with his life.
Jackpots and losses
while his beautiful bride
of forty years,
comes down the veranda
and stands with him,
waving at ships
moving on the horizon.