I’ve been standing all night in the woods near Necedah with your name etched in red on my tongue like a box-elder wing. Loss of life occurred at a specific hour, a certain day, we are told. No one was with you—how that weighs on me. That there can be no untwisting of the tree back into its seed. Innocent of all charges. Granted just one reprieve. Has there ever been anyone more false than I am, pretending I know which one is a white pine against white stars? Shouldn’t I remember which of these is the tree you climbed, which of these you were too afraid to come down from? I think you were the first person to say Cassiopeia to me. As young as we were, we could not carry a ladder out here by ourselves. Alone, I watch the water move now like a clock someone is winding with a knife. I am starved for that easy taxonomy of Things Before. For the years not likely to be cut open with scissors only to find proof of disease. Black hair spooling from the lungs of each month since. You’re gone & I collect fox fur by myself in every direction. You’re gone & I misname the trees.

IN MARCH WHEN YOU TELL ME YOU DON’T

I walk in a straight line as a compass pulled the wrong way north.

High Priestess of the Not-Quite. Chief Dolorous. And fuck it all—

All of it. Unobserved, clement.

Being the one who—being the one that—–

I have the problem of needing to say my history teeth-first to a body

of water—to the river, to the gutter, to the storm drain red & rushed

with leaves in dirty water on the way to your apartment maybe

I should give up the story that what I say can change it

notwithstanding one for, one against your cowardice

notwithstanding halfwinter light torn up wet-white & eyeless

& I know I should sky up birdward—I know I should circle high

until my arms are kited cramped but can I see you

plainly or at all from any height do I know how

to see you I do but I don’t & I can’t

find you on a March night moonless on the hill where I know you

are out walking the treeline slowly with your dog.

Tell me               if I can make the not-moon intercede—

If I can come south as a figure wearing starlings as a coat

If I can be If I can be If I can be

a tunnel either leafing or branching or——

If I can be If I can be If I can be

[IN DEFEAT I WAS PERFECT]

In defeat I was perfect

the luster & the grime on me irresistible

Bright landscape with the sky blacked out

A spectacle      I was tied into the clothesline drunk

In my defense    every arrogant green thing

had been blooming against my directive