Elegy

The need to give names to these parts:

trachea, larynx, cochlea, sternum, to give

you an idea of fullness, the body not being

enough anymore, not just in the body,

not just being full of it. Being an inside

that can be turned, like a lip pulled down,

like a snail pulled out of its burrowing place,

like a burrowing place with a name, and nephew,

whose conversations emerge from the hush.

We are convinced there are treasures, further,

things to be found undoubtedly at least, diggers

only fools for picking any one spot. The non-rot

of arrowheads, a riot of artifacts. The ruthless

tracks with intestine logic; turns become paths

beyond where we were supposed to wait,

wowed by what’s sheer. Some magnitudes can only

be put in words of weight. So loss becomes heavy,

silence pregnant with the absence of what was there.

You were there. Perhaps you can feel the thickness

of your cartilage, sense a kaleidoscope of valves,

murmuring. The personal ocean hypothesis. So many

glowing orbs, they could certainly be beautiful,

in the right darkness. I’ve felt numerous. You are

more than just anything. An absence of proper places

belongs here, too. We would hold anything to let go.