NINE

I know how old I was but it is the year I keep thinking about

the last Sunday in August, barely my age, the tracks curving north

through a heat ripple, a portal

impossible to enter, we agreed

-- or exit, someone added

the thought had not occurred to us

someone's cousin, a visitor to our world

as if the world was something to depart from, was how I heard her

this kid, too young to say such a thing, younger than me in '71