Sometimes I hear the earth’s sunken voice,
……a throat-slit pouring silk, saying
…………this is water; this is darkness;

this is a body fitting your description. Saying
……we can never be without loss
…………too long.

The cemetery expands its borders―little milky crosses
……grow like teeth. I knew I would lose you. Why
…………do stars break the morning sky?

I’ve engraved your name
……on the palms of my hands. We are two guests
…………on an excess, fugitive cloud.

Some say we are living
……at the end of time. An afterlife
…………of parts―rubble, but not without shape;

the sunset’s patchy rust; a creek of shadows; a body
……displaced against the pull of the waters.
…………No me, no you. No beginning, no end.

Come home, come home, the five porches weep.
……Old bone home―mottled mildewed wallpaper
…………like a wet coat we couldn’t put back on;

a naked animal in search of a pelt. Some things
……are hidden from us: the film of old water in a well;
…………glaciers in a slow dissolve.

Eight weeks of deluge and gloom, but dear eager earth
……makes its impossible offer: one thousand birds in the hand,
…………well water sweet for a hundred miles, and light,

more new light. How kind time is. Messages from the dead
……arrive like calm white birds with a gift, and all
…………the sky there is fills my throat.