The two who stood there
and the two who saw them said
not what they said

Up from the gripping feet
through the twigs of the crooked legs … leaning
                 tensing the tail and ringing the bones

She merely rotates for me her mask
as if to bring something
born in one world back in another

I swiveled my head then to find a deer
camouflaged by the leaves no longer there
“what should I do with someone’s silhouette?”

I notice its highest buds always leaf first
the serf twigs twisted and naked

and in the also silence
of justice as after      a rain a storm a hurricane

They are like men because they are isolated
yet stand in the rain, surrounded by mounds
of dirt and asphalt to catch spillover—

There’s nothing on earth like an accident
to put you in touch with time⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠—time then speaks
in all but words, your mother tongue, it croons

I felt my sin shift itself beneath the skin.

Telipinu went, and he brought away the good. He brought away the plenty, the grain, and the wood.