The child asks about earth
The earth is a school. It is a waiting room, a foyer giving onto emptiness
It is for desires, small but beautifully done
The earth is wrapped in weather, and the weather in risen words
The child is awake, singing to himself, speaking in a language ending with the word night
Unaware of the sea entering, of the eternal dunes burying
Wooden matchsticks in a cup
The meaning of an object or its lack
Their preoccupation with suitcases and their contents
God returns to the world from within and the past
Is circular, like consequence
The earth tentative, blue: a fire wrapped in cold water
A sudden gust of yellow tickets, a cold blue rail and some boat lights
The barrier dunes, blue asters, the parabolic dunes, and wind
The children have returned to the beach, this time a boy and a girl
Hurrying toward then away from the water
He is wearing a red jacket and it is not important, the jacket
The child asks if fish have tongues. The other laughs, giving white tissues to the dog
A white sail tied over the bay’s mouth muffles the sea
On the water’s map, little x’s: a cross-stitched sampler of cries for help
And yet every lost one has been seen, mornings in winter, and at night
When the fishermen have cast their nets one too many times
They surface, the lost, drawing great hillocks of breath
We on the shore no longer vanish when the beacon strokes us
The child’s boat plies the water in imitation of boats
Years they sought her, whose crew left on the water a sad Welsh hymn
Voices from a ketch lit by candles
Days pass and nothing occurs, nights pass, nights, and life continues in its passing
We must try then to send a message ending with the word night

V

A river that later caught fire
A stone with its own list of names
Nothing that worked once can be tried again
That’s what he told me. I didn’t know. I worked as a housewife then, bound to the
   passing meals
The need for linens, the demand to return flying clothes to their hooks.
At night I found myself in a pasture of refuse
After the city vanished, they were carried on black mats from one place
To another with no one to answer them
Vultures watching from the white trees
A portable safe found stuffed with charred paper
An incense burner fused to its black prayer
In the city’s perfect emanation of light
We lost every alternate route
We were there, ill there, in the new birthplace of humanity

In the last of the world’s open cities, rain begins
The china cups are cleared from the chiming tables
A garden of black silk blooms
Forget the fish, the bottle, the bath towels stiffening on the grate
Sleeveless pajamas, skirts of fire and flowers
A girl’s face turned toward a cup of water with no mouth
Hello child, hang your coat here. This is what she said after so many years. This was all
   she said

VI