Picnic in Stone

They stopped for lunch, a bare schoolyard,

a wooden table exposed to summer sun.

She can't remember where they were going,

the state they were in — just a blank highway,

little insular towns. She can't remember

who was with her. An early lover?

Only how bleak it was beside the stone bleachers

where they held twin halves of a ham sandwich,

lettuce wilting at the edges. Memory's

an old dog running off-trail. Now it returns