Carving

On the sunny way home,
The children in the back
Of the convertible

With the top down, of course,
And the sun everywhere,
As if there were nothing

Beyond the car itself,
Except for light and wind,
Certainly nothing else

In memory. They sprawled.
Why weren’t their seat belts on?
Also lost. One child’s head

In another child’s lap,
The second child amazed
By the whorls of an ear

As he stared into them,
How the shape fit itself
Like intricate carving,

A polished bannister
With small flecks of ear wax.
Memory would keep that.