It’s not that I’m lost

like the mouse
decaying

somewhere in the basement

the one I can smell but can’t
find

I wake into clothes without
a body

walk through the labyrinth
of days

the skin grows all sorts of things
when you die

flies buzzing in ears that no longer
hear

the weeping inside

each step no more than
a biography

a calling to each other

like the sickly-sweet scent
of the mouse

that must be somewhere
in the basement

if only I could find it

I could give you my newborn
name

bind you to me with a pearl
in your mouth

stack bones against your feet

in a dream like that I could tell you
about the little bloom

of its eyes

its throat of charred
dusk

in a dream like that I could find
that mouse

lay the story of its body
down

bury it in the long arm
of leaves

fallen

like a solstice

like a simple breath

upon the earth

This blind dream

You remember
yesterday

how you said
you’d take flight

from this blind
dream

How you’d never sit
counting drips
from the faucet

never open the aviary
of your doorless body
again

only to find
a stranger

There is no mistaking
this haunted sky
for a field

where you might dig free
of this chosen
silence—

snow-covered
hemlocks

snow-covered
pines

longer than the splinter
in your eye

split from your last brief
revelation

Often, I return

to a dog-eared page
and wonder why

or stare at an antique photo
of a loved one

as if it’s a window
open to rain

I wander this still life
of a city

through the slow wash
of days framed

by the pain in the mouth
of a passerby—

a foreigner depending
on the safe lies of memory

while life hums with almost
blossoms

and drunk ghosts stumbling
along boulevards

mutter vague curses
of what might have been

Because the sparrows in the trees
whistle carefree and loud

Because the coyote calls
her whelps yipping from lack

Because you keep asking
how deep the snow

I walk through the soughing wind
into the dimming light

Faith, after all, was easy then
before the road turned

back, then back, again