Fire came
        was the first line
of every story—it spread like story—

Dream-I-Believe I brought
        out of the night still streaming
                out It was real I was right!

To present an offering. Or, the offering itself.
        A drink of water. A glass held up: an honor, a toast.

Quiet, my tiny violins, salve
the poor chests beaten bruise-grey with grief.

Because:

            a garter snake slid over my bare foot

Mother spoke skua: 
she shrieked. Who can roll back 
the Atlantic scandal?

Wild horses folded into their last night. 
One burrowed against the dead’s descending heat 
as three cantered from the threadbare wood. 

Is the little bird torn apart 
by a paw? Lights switch on, at least 
one juxtaposition between 

He was always so interestingly wrong.
I loved him, in fact for years couldn’t live
without him, he who helped crystallize

If I look to the opposite shore and greet myself there, 
if I call out to myself come here 
and watch myself laboriously construct from shore-things