You hurt me, then,
Burnt a bird’s white plumage—
Claim that we are the better for it,
That we will heal in time.
Strident and inaccurate
Despite all proximity,
The mountains no longer
Made me feel better.
The year in its wheel of winter
And its small cylinder of light
In excess. Far pillars could
Resemble human figures
Though only rock rises
From some progression
Of dust, demand, and rotten
Wood. I place my hand on stone
And become stone myself.
Through a tangle of alder
I could make passage
A thousand obscure,
Contradictory ways.
Some ruin
Of a renounced thing.
Some measure
For retraction in its red
Declension. By fix
Of milk in saltwater,
Blood in milk. Our
Division of phrase
From fact. Mother,
Aakaa; Woman,
Aġnaq. Already
In naming my sons,
You foresee the last time
We will be able to talk
Together—I, daughterless,
And you, who knew.
Wavelessly, against
Flatland: the ocean,
The sun, hanging.
He carved the light, though
The world remains
Unmoved. Wind furls
Sashes of dry snow
Across the road,
Hoar nacres electrical
Transformers. I was
Cochlear, curving, bone
Handed me the eardrum
Of a bowhead whale—
Veined and furrowed.
Listening, I began
To know so little.
A line of white birds ends in nothing.
The falling song of women unseen
Twists between rock spires,
Our distant island
Haunted by the numberless.
From the deep shade of the gully.
The water continues to rise.
Unbound from the slum
That backs to black bogs
Surrounded by gravel,
Take us back.
