Synchrony

Your old friend is scattering 
the ashes of her grandson 
into the lake where he liked 
to swim before fentanyl 
and his furtive night life,

as you, speechless, consider 
Brueghel and that boy’s legs 
engulfed by the sea, all 
that’s left of his bravado, 
that precipitous fall.

You know how the sun sets 
at different times, rises 
too, without you; the tides 
churn in and out, the rains 
wash and the daylight