Letter to Abstraction
I leave with that voice? In Austria the alps are blowing
with bedsheets. The innkeeper sings my child, my child
and maybe this is what breaks me. It is hard to remember
the German word for light. I must lose something more?
Lightning each summer takes a person downriver and crushes
the pelvis. I climb with the Münter-hitch, the hip wrap,
the daisy-chain. Making the crossing. This is not risking.
I must lose the singing. The woman who comes back at night
twisting her voice into song. I listen for the teacup.
A spoon against the pantry wall.
Letter to Abstraction
I cannot do it for you he says over rice
and lamb. I cannot make the wind, the ground
or the speed of flurries into the thin shaft
of metal that makes you dark and sad all morning.
Thinking of trains, thinking you are on those trains.
It’s New Years and still I will not say which army
used the gray wool blanket you fit around your breasts
after each shower, each bath. A heron in the weeds
and still the tone we hold is silk like the black sixth
of the Gregorian chants you play to keep the night, night.
Letter to Abstraction
Untitled until a Bucket of Water
and a Blue U-Turn jeopardize the simple
thing I am trying to see. Last night thunder
chased the January-river farther away, lightening
even that was too easy. Halogen and a branch
near the bend made me think I could walk the shape
it put down on water but fear of god and clothing
kept me waiting on the bridge.