The water turns
a long way down over the raw stone
ice crusts around it
We walk separately
along the hill to the open

The body dies
little by little
the body buries itself
joins itself
to the loosened mind, to the black

How did I get so dutiful? Was I
Going around as a child with a sma
sweeping up dirt I didn’t make,
or out into the yard with a stunte
weeding the gardens of others

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost

Those whose houses were burned
burned houses. What else ever happ
once you start?
While the roofs plunged
into the root-filled cellars,

An other sense tugs at us:
we have lost something,
some key to these things
which must be writings
and are locked against us

Snow packs the roadsides, sends du
onto the pavement, moves
through vision like a wave or sand
The bus charges this winter,
a whale or blunt gray

In restaurants we argue
over which of us will pay for your
though the real question is
whether or not I will make you imm
At the moment only I

You, going along the path,
mosquito-doped, with no moon, the
a single orange eye
unable to see what is beyond
the capsule of your dim

I am the heart of a murdered woman
who took the wrong way home
who was strangled in a vacant lot
who was shot with care beneath a t
who was mutilated by a crisp knife