Grandma, come back, I forgot

To what and to whom does one say yes?If God were the uncertain, would you cling to him?Beneath a tattoo of stars the gate open, so silent so like a tomb.This is the city you most loved, an empty stairwellwhere the next rain lifts invisibly from the Seine.With solitude, your coat open, you walksteadily as…

White. Given lilacs, lilacs disappear. Then low voices rising in walls.The way they withdrew from the child’s body and spoke as if it were not there.What ghost comes to the bedside whispering You?— With its no one without its I —A dwarf ghost? A closet of empty clothes?Ours was a ghost who stole household goods….

daughter filed her nails, his son went out for thenight. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistolon the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare onits black cord over the house. On the televisionwas a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottleswere embedded in the walls around the house toscoop the kneecaps from…

the ache of some field song in Salvador.The wind along the prison, cautiousas Francisco’s hands on the inside, touchingthe walls as he walks, it is his wife’s breathslipping into his cell each night while heimagines his hand to be hers. It is a small country.There is nothing one man will not do to another.

fire in a fenced clearing.The posts’ blunt stubs sank down,they circled and were roofed by milledlumber dragged at one time to the coast.We slept there.Each morning the minus tide—weeds flowed it like hair swimming.The starfish gripped rock, pastel,rough. Fish bones lay in sun.Each noon the milk fog sankfrom cloud cover, came inour clothes and held…

from the imprint of perfect wings and cold gowns,and we stagger together wine-breathed into townwhere our people are buildingtheir armies again, short years afterbody bags, after burnings. There is a manI’ve come to love after thirty, and we haveour rituals of coffee, of airports, regret.After love we smoke and sleepwith magazines, two shot glassesand the…