Book

I lost my book. It’s got the names in it. Names for things and goods; structures, Types, boundaries, procedures, goads. My girl is in it, she who carried it Within her like a rare worm Until the untended bird came And tore its leaves from her As she lay there, Pencil pressing page, Taking it all down. Then the vast storehouses came down too, And the small secret ones, The shelves and grappling hooks, Dust, ink, lead, linen, ragged board. It’s time to go home and wash up. Home was in the book in my possession When I was reading what had been put down In her hand and mine, Instructions, inventories, Names. But I can’t read this while looking at words While I am assigned to living In what is called a home. It is all unkept. Its yard has turned back to heat-giving Snail-like deposits drowning in daylight By the mossed-over fence post. We lived here once? We took words down for all the names, Made markings? That book is lost, reader, Not misplaced.