How many days? Days we arrive at evening not knowing their meaning. For a moment your hand catching the bone of my hip filled our aloneness, but the orders inside stayed shut. Sunlight flew through the air and we hovered, felt age in our skin like a thick indoor dusk. Foolhardy to think the syllabary would soon catch fire and plunge its message into us. I believe I am here. I know something beats inside the seasons and will close up to view if I try to use it. Never-ending countries― a whistle from the street, hot black coffee at dawn, two hundred tiny birds bolting effortlessly from the oak. And that red darkness rising into wind, the coffins arriving off-camera at Dover under cover of night. I am only a field-ghost, a routine of sleep and labor and unwinding. But would keep my eyes wild enough to feel those bodies blinking in me―all too unsteady, the earth, not on our terms but moving to meet us. (And certain griefs cannot be brought inside, too full as they are of their own destinations.) Merciful that it is possible to sleep with such ancient harm taking constant place around us, taking each thing away from you and then life itself. Vital force branching through my lungs, my hands, shine― please shine―if what we are meant to be is more than this, more than the hours coming upon us in the dark.
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