NAVIGATION 

Time I haven’t figured 
coming back to distance 

more echo than origination
the noun of want and verb 
of undoing

my love is afraid 
this is something I cannot keep 

how we track and settle 
space for our being

at home through the window 
I watch a tree break in half 
and fall onto the axe  

towards home I am driving 
to the sound of metal 
sliding against itself 

and I assume it  
to be birds or the battered 
trucks on either side of me

until they are gone and still 
something is chirping 
the road the sound is following me
because I am making it

much of this is like that

starlings flock into the valley 
and sing like a flood 
spatial and ambulant 

light closes in an aching eye 
thick on the anonymous 
rock outside our threshold 

where we bury things 
that rot and punctuate
our study of decay 

there are things to harbor hope 

this is what I want to give you

opportunities in the photograph
of your right hand holding left

as soon as we turn north 
it is dark as far as sight

is there another way to live 
by holding what we’ve always 

at home I can see the smoke 
cough and slide out of a skyline 
through the one window 
not covered by plastic

for the fire it matters 
to be shouting distance 

climbing the half-built 
staircase to the rooftop 
we watch it slowly lose opacity 
from black to grey to something 

golden then clear
the wind is after us 

COMPLINE

Limit the enemy of good 
facsimile or formula 

in peregrinating ache,
enough of keening 
towards absolution

look at the eyes
of this sweet superlative 
horse 

knowing of the light 
not speaking 

hello my love 
goodbye my love 

driving home now
through the substrate 
wanting to be met 

there is language 
in your teeth, the ear 
is one and body other 

arriving to its blame 
for what I will not pay
the matriculated state
I am the body of, 

how’s that

strange splitted textures
there is no safety in hope 

anything good is through 
this holy door