stolen cars lost in the deepest wells,

the water below

an ink waiting to fill me.

Outside a towel hangs from a cold line

a sheet of iron in the sky

roses painted on it, blue roses.

Tomorrow it will still be there.

Ago

I don’t even know

how a telephone works, how your voice reached

all the way from Iron River, fed

across wires or satellites, transformed

& returned. I don’t understand

the patience this takes, or anything

about the light-years between stars.

An hour ago

you cupped your hands in the tub & raised them up,

an offering of steam. Now

we’re driving 66 mph

& one maple is coming up fast, on fire. I begin,

it’s like those fireworks over

the East River, but it’s not enough

to say this. By the time I find the words

it will already be past, rushing away as if falling

into a grave, drained

of electricity, the world between something is happening

& something happened. Think of an astronaut, big silver hands

& gravity boots, the effort spent

to keep from flying off into space. Think of

the first time your grandparents listened

to a phonograph, the needle falling to black

vinyl, a song without a body. Think of the names

you see on a map, think of these towns & rivers

before they were named, when “Liberty” & “New Hope”

were a large rock, a stand of birches. It’s what

I’m afraid of, the speed with which everything

is replaced, these trees, your smile, my mother

turning her back to me before work,

asking over her shoulder,

how does this look?

Radio Thin Air

Keep the radio on softly

so it sounds like two people in the next

room, maybe

your parents, speaking calmly about something

important—a lack

of cash, the broken

cellar pump. Marconi believed

we are wrapped in voices, that waves

never die, merely space themselves

farther & farther apart,

passing through the ether he imagined

floating the planets. But wander

into the kitchen & no one

will be there, the tiny red eye of the radio, songs

that crawl through walls,

voices pulled from air. Marconi

wanted to locate the last song

the band on the deck of the Titanic played,

what Jesus said

on the cross, he kept dialing

the frequency, staring across the Atlantic,

his ear to the water,

there, can you hear it?

Sudden

If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper

might have used the word massive,

as if a mountain range had opened

inside her, but instead

it used the word suddenly, a light coming on

in an empty room. The telephone

fell from my shoulder, a black parrot repeating

something happened, something awful

a sunday, dusky. If it had been

terminal, we could have cradled her

as she grew smaller, wiped her mouth,

said good-bye. But it was sudden,

how overnight we could be orphaned

& the world become a bell we’d crawl inside

& the ringing all we’d eat.