Standing on the platform, Manchester Victoria,
waiting for the after-supper train. Home,
to Glasgow.

        Luke 19:11

Wheat threshed, casks of cherries, plums,
boiled melon, beef tallow, pig bladders blown
and tossed by children, mothers stirring stock,
kidneys, hearts pressed with aspic,

casings scraped and stuffed, allspice, cloves.
Fields bare, packed clay, porcelain sheen,
the long winter sleep. In my dream,
I wake and the village is empty,

       the baby, name lost. 1906. Spring born,
almond and blackthorn in bloom. Meadowsweet,
chickweed, petals of milk on her lips.

Spider-silk saliva from mouth to crab apple fists,
on Mother’s lap, the train from Kiev to Minsk
after the last harvest in Tiegenort.

Pool at the Antzo-mendi
The Antzo-mendi bar was where
we went when we were male adolescents.
The place was big
and had a pool table in the middle.
Wooden floors.
You heard Velvet Underground there,
Ziggy Stardust.

Trotsky for me was riding
high up on the back of the tractor.

Trotsky for me was taking a bath naked
with my little friend in the bathtub.

               In my family, a silver cup
               is called a goblet.

               A room with books, however small,
               a library.

A bench, a sofa, anyplace flat—
just let me down
somewhere quiet, please,
a strange lap, a patch of grass . . .

You prefer me invisible, no more than
a crisp salute far away from
your silks and firewood and woolens.

Let Scott equal “I.”

Scott says, “I
asked my team
to pull your records.”

One after another the angel of history
Women: rural, 9, 1536, 1547, 1550, the angel of history
1551—52, 1559; in business, 147; and the angel of history