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