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A man began to eat his order of fish, and the ghost of the fish arose and spoke. Forgive me, it said, please hear me. I died in despair, which is, as you know, the worst of the deadly sins. As I slowly suffocated in the alien air, I gave up hope of salvation, and so died without the consolation of religion. In your compassion and mercy, have a Mass said for me, and pray for my soul. With that, the ghost of the fish vanished, and the man, congratulating himself on possessing the carcass of such a remorseful creature, tucked in.

Now I know that I’ve never described anything, not one single thing, not the flesh of the avocado which darkens so quickly, though if you scrape what’s been exposed to the air it’s new-green beneath like nothing ever happened. I want to describe this evening, though it’s not spectacular. The baby babbling in the other room over the din and whistle of a football game, and now the dog just outside the door, scratching, rattling the tags on her collar, the car going by, far away but loud, a car without a muffler, and the sound of the baby returning again, pleasure and weight. I want to describe the baby. I want to describe the baby for many hours to anyone who wishes to hear me. My feelings for her take me so far inside myself I can see the pure holiness in motherhood, and it makes me burn with success and fear, the hole her coming has left open, widening. Last night we fed her some of the avocado I’ve just finished eating while writing this poem. Her first food. I thought my heart might burst, knowing she would no longer be made entirely of me, flesh of my flesh. Startled in her amusing way by the idea of eating, she tried to take it in, but her mouth pushed it out. And my heart did burst.

Twelve people, most of us strangers, stand in a room in Ann Arbor, drinking Cribari from jars. Then two young men, who cooked him, carry him to the table on a large square of plywood: his body striped, like a tiger cat’s, from the basting, his legs long, much longer than a cat’s, and the striped hide as shiny as vinyl. Now I see his head, as he takes his place at the center of the table, his wide pig’s head; and he looks like the javelina that ran in front of the car, in the desert outside Tucson, and I am drawn to him, my brother the pig, with his large ears cocked forward, with his tight snout, with his small ferocious teeth in a jaw propped open by an apple. How bizarre, this raw apple clenched in a cooked face! Then I see his eyes, his eyes cramped shut, his no-eyes, his eyes like X’s in a comic strip, when the character gets knocked out. This afternoon they read directions from a book:The eyeballs must be removed or they will burst during roasting.

Dark by five, the day gives up and so do I, stalled at the top of the stairs I forget what for, adrift in a scrap of dream that’s not a dream exactly but a stupor, unrefined. I go astray in old routines, I dare myself to reconstruct the rules of old invented games—that one of throwing snowballs at the roof, to watch them shrink as they rolled down, spinning to their pits, to see the force that made them briefly a thing so neatly undone. Today an old friend’s tiny boy lobbied me to pitch some snowballs at him. I bowed to his dense little will. But planned to miss. As I packed and flung each one to its unpacking, he hunted down the humble bits and crumbs of every impact, as they ran from him along the icy slope, and gathered and carried them back to me at the top. Eating them as he came. So that’s how you get to the marrow of breakdown. I forgot. That you could put what’s left to your lips.

I know my friend is going, though she still sits there across from me in the restaurant, and leans over the table to dip her bread in the oil on my plate; I know how thick her hair used to be, and what it takes for her to discard her man’s cap partway through our meal, to look straight at the young waiter and smile when he asks how we are liking it. She eats as though starving—chicken, dolmata, the buttery flakes of filo— and what’s killing her eats, too. I watch her lift a glistening black olive and peel the meat from the pit, watch her fine long fingers, and her face, puffy from medication. She lowers her eyes to the food, pretending not to know what I know. She’s going. And we go on eating.

When you know that vore means eat, you will know that insectivores feed on grasshoppers, moths, and butterflies, mosquitoes, bees, and plain-old flies. When you know that carni means meat, you will know that carnivores eat snakes and lizards, deer and lamb, carrion, birds, fish, and ham. When you know that herb means plant, you will know that herbivores CAN'T eat anything that moves on a foot, just foods that spring up from a root. When you know that omni means all, you will know that omnivores call Everything they can suck or chew— sometimes even me or you— food.

I still keep it hidden in the jar of  saltwater you gave me     don’t worry, no one can hear me, my husband’s in the bathroom & my daughter’s in her bedroom wearing those headphones made of sponges on her ears yes, I’ve kept it all these years, and kept it hidden, but — I have to tell you something: something about it has changed recently     has changed     since the last time we talked     the shell has opened, and — calm down      please      I’m about to tell you     I’ve waited years to tell you     how?     how could I have called you?     I don’t know where you live: I don’t even know your name! so     I’m telling you now: the gluey seam that held it closed     at some point it began to dissolve     I don’t know     around Christmastime, I suppose     but it was gradual     subtle     not something easily seen through water, through glass      so perhaps it started earlier than that, but that’s when I first noticed — (of course it’s still alive     I know because I know) so     after the seal first began to loosen, things accelerated after that     and I could see inside of  it     and what I saw was a tongue     but very pale     the tongue was white, in fact, and thin as a strip of paper     also smooth     no bumps or grooves     but there was no doubt: this was a tongue I’m sorry    I used the past tense only so that you might understand how it appeared to me when it was new and strange     to describe to you what I saw then     not because it’s changed     because it hasn’t      except in its familiarity I spend an hour with it every morning      and if the weather’s mild, after they’ve gone to bed, I take it out at night, lie on my back in the grass, hold the jar on my chest, and together we watch the metallic flower petals spin at each other in that dangerous memory of  heaven, or the past    please     don’t cry    no one’s to blame     and nothing’s ruined, nothing’s wrong      there’s no discomfort      there seems to be no pain     there’s only time, letting something looser     and I’ve made the preparations     it will die when I die no, she isn’t listening    and if  she is     well, then the eavesdropper’s punishment is hers      she can’t be spared      all her life spent holding her breath    only to hear     the sound absorbed by moss stuffed into the ears of  a stillborn kitten      all her life     over and over again at the kitchen table     playing the tapes of a conversation she recorded with a microphone slipped into a coffin thirty-six years ago     finding no meaning in those     and searching for the jar in which she’s certain it still floats      the tongue of  her mother’s ghost

I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge.

When first thou on me, Lord, wrought'st thy sweet print, My heart was made thy tinder box. My ’ffections were thy tinder in’t: Where fell thy sparks by drops. Those holy sparks of heavenly fire that came Did ever catch and often out would flame. But now my heart is made thy censer trim, Full of thy golden altar’s fire, To offer up sweet incense in Unto thyself entire: I find my tinder scarce thy sparks can feel That drop out from thy holy flint and steel. Hence doubts out bud for fear thy fire in me ’S a mocking ignis fatuus; Or lest thine altars fire out be, It’s hid in ashes thus. Yet when the bellows of thy spirit blow Away mine ashes, then thy fire doth glow.

Als das Kind Kind war, war es die Zeit der folgenden Fragen: Warum bin ich ich und warum nicht du? — Peter Handke, “Lied Vom Kindsein” i Began like pu, the uncarved block in a strange land. Simulacrum, wood golem knocking about, dreaming of flesh. Lies, truths, growths, recede and wonder what it is to be: D’où Venons Nous Que Sommes Nous Où Allons Nous Woher kommen wir Wer sind wir Wohin gehen wir Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? How long have I got? Father never answers. Why he is surprised when I bolt, A prodigal arrow, into The world, I can only suspect, among gears and puppets. ii Wander the world. I saw a boy herding ox. I saw a dog dropping bones in the water, barking for more. I saw a bathing woman with a beggar on a crutch of wood. I saw a wretch with a dead albatross envy archers Whose arrows were beyond them. I may have seen a fleeting vanity fair, some carnival of souls. I saw a Hmong orphan calling Naga kings from the riverbank, Expecting nothing. iii Maw like Leviathan, peer of Melville’s albino, Abyssal gaze returned. Within your belly like a worm, After a lifetime of fighting, how I’ve become like you, Adrift In the sea, Jonah, a leaf, While the boy next to me has become a jackass. And yet I still wish and yearn, Dionysian, a destiny, if not a dynasty.