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after Frost We were the land's before we were. Or the land was ours before you were a land. Or this land was our land, it was not your land. We were the land before we were people, loamy roamers rising, so the stories go, or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul— What's America, but the legend of Rock 'n' Roll? Red rocks, blood clots bearing boys, blood sands swimming being from women's hands, we originate, originally, spontaneous as hemorrhage. Un-possessing of what we still are possessed by, possessed by what we now no more possess. We were the land before we were people, dreamy sunbeams where sun don't shine, so the stories go, or pulled up a hole, clawing past ants and roots— Dineh in documentaries scoff DNA evidence off. They landed late, but canyons spoke them home. Nomadic Turkish horse tribes they don't know. What's America, but the legend of Stop 'n' Go? Could be cousins, left on the land bridge, contrary to popular belief, that was a two-way toll. In any case we'd claim them, give them some place to stay. Such as we were we gave most things outright (the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakes and tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today . . .) We were the land before we were a people, earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go, or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth— The land, not the least vaguely, realizing in all four directions, still storied, art-filled, fully enhanced. Such as she is, such as she wills us to become.

To the students of anatomy at Indiana University That gaunt old man came first, his hair as white As your scoured tables. Maybe you’ll recollect him By the scars of steelmill burns on the backs of his hands, On the nape of his neck, on his arms and sinewy legs, And her by the enduring innocence Of her face, as open to all of you in death As it would have been in life: she would memorize Your names and ages and pastimes and hometowns If she could, but she can’t now, so remember her. They believed in doctors, listened to their advice, And followed it faithfully. You should treat them One last time as they would have treated you. They had been kind to others all their lives And believed in being useful. Remember somewhere Their son is trying hard to believe you’ll learn As much as possible from them, as he did, And will do your best to learn politely and truly. They gave away the gift of those useful bodies Against his wish. (They had their own ways Of doing everything, always.) If you’re not certain Which ones are theirs, be gentle to everybody.

They pluck my sleeve, tug my hand, pull my hair. They do not kneel to kiss my hem. No, it’s not like that but they want tokens. Again, not souvenirs but something small and useful, something that will help them out after life, maybe in an underworld. They need a sighted guide to lead them to the river, and they need a remnant of the old world as they embark for the older world, the one that has existed since the first grievous death. They need to feel they still can touch and still be touched, as once they did and were, and one would have to be a cold, uncaring woman to deny their pleas: a woman with a bulletproof  heart, without a memory of life on earth.

They were nearing the end of their story. The fire was dying, like the fire in the story. Each page turned was torn and fed to flames, until word by word the book burned down to an unmade bed of ash. Wet kindling from an orchard of wooden spoons, snow stewing, same old wind on the Gramophone, same old wounds. Turn up the blue dial under the kettle until darkness boils with fables, and mirrors defrost to the quick before fogging with steam, and dreams rattle their armor of stovepipes and ladles. Boots in the corner kick in their sleep. A jacket hangs from a question mark.

The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true.

I spot the hills With yellow balls in autumn. I light the prairie cornfields Orange and tawny gold clusters And I am called pumpkins. On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to the harvest moon; I am a jack-o'-lantern With terrible teeth And the children know I am fooling.

In you all deaths gather, all the broken glasses, the sere pages, the derangements of thought, they gather in you, guilty of all deaths, incomplete and guilty, in the wake of every mother, in your wake, motionless. They gather there, in your weak hands. The apples of this market are death, these poems retreat into their grammar, in the hotel room, in the hut of what does not join, souls without rest, aged lips, bark ripped from the trunk. They are dead. They gather there. They failed, the operation failed, they failed. The place was motionless, the word obscure. That was the place we agreed on. Goodbye, memory of the sparkling nights, goodbye, big smile, the place was there. To breathe was a darkness shutters had made, a primitive state. Silence and desert were switching positions and we were talking to a lamp. The place was that one. The trolleys rarely passed. Venus was returning to her hut. Out of the warrior throat, episodes broke free. We didn't say anything more. The place was that one. It was there that you were dying.

Once we were in the loop . . . slick with information and the luster of good timing. We folded our clothes. Once we stood up before the standing vigils,before the popping vats,before the annotated lists of marshaled forces with their Venn diagrams like anxious zygotes, their paratactic chasms . . .before the set of whirligig blades, modular torrent. We folded our clothes. Once we remembered to get up to pee . . . and how to pee in a gleaming bowl . . . soaked as we were in gin and coconut, licorice water with catalpa buds, golden beet syrup in Johnny Walker Blue and a beautiful blur like August fog, cantilevered over the headlands . . . We tucked into the crevices of the mattress pad twirling our auburn braids, or woke up at the nick of light and practiced folding our clothes. Our pod printed headbands with hourly updates, announcing the traversals of green-shouldered hawks through the downtown loop, of gillyfish threading the north canals, of the discovery of electron calligraphy or a new method of washing brine. We smoothed our feathers like birds do, and twitched ourselves into warm heaps, and followed the fourth hand on the platinum clocks sweeping in arcs from left to right, up and down, in and out . . . We were steeped in watchfulness, fully suspended, itinerant floaters — ocean of air — among  the ozone lily pads and imbrex domes, the busting thickets of nutmeg, and geode malls. At night we told stories about the future with clairvoyant certainty. Our clothing was spectacular and fit to a T. We admired each other with ferocity.

For the first time, I listen to a lost and secret recording of us making love near-on ten years ago. I recognize your voice, your sounds, though if I knew no better, I could be any man in any room. After, the rising sounds of rising and of dressing and once as you step up close to the deck, perhaps to pick up shoes, you sing the chorus of Sunday Morning. I call on you to hurry and we leave. It does not end then; the tape rolls on. A few late cars which sigh by might have passed us walking away triumphant, unaware we’ve left behind this mop and mow mechanism of silence to which we may never return.

(i) I woke to early sun: burning of fire, & then afterward. We kept reaching through the long night. (ii) Afterward, the small deceptions we allow ourselves: a sickness, unchecked. Like this: (iii) & first sunlight. Snow continues. I could never close my eyes to light. But there was no light & you looked like night. (iv) There must be a pattern, snow slow-dropping in wet clusters through the wooden arms of empty trees. (v) Sun fingering its way through branches I’d hung my life on. We don’t matter a bit; realization forces our eyes closed— (vi) A sickness, unchecked, like this. I’d hung my life on burning of fire, & then afterward. (vii) Our arms together we searched for patterns & sunlight. (viii) Our arms laced together, pointing together over wind-tossed grasses. Us: waist deep in night blue. (ix) There was no light. You pointed. (x) Sun overhead, you pointed to the wind-tossed grasses. This is a memory now. (xi) Together in that first sun, so vivid: there must be a pattern I’d hung my life on. (xii) Snow dropped in clusters, staggered & jagged. We don’t matter a bit. (xiii) Reflected in lake water: all these things I’ll forget. (xiv) Our arms together but we keep reaching over the wind-tossed grasses. (xv) Black smoke curling: the importance of night-blue field grass, (xvi) the importance of. The stars are close; we try to hold together. (xvii) All this ends but until then: burning of fire, & then afterward. The stars are close; we try to hold. Such distance between the fallen! (xviii) Burning of fire, & then afterward. You pointed. (xix) Grasses silently fold, a sickness, unchecked, reaching. Like this. Wooden arms of trees long since emptied. (xx) This ends in darkness, & all the stars within reach, & other constellations.