You hoarded oyster shells through the R months;
they jut from the backyard garden like unwashed ears
of earth, and listen to your footsteps growing heavier.

I hold my brother’s daughter in my lap
and clip her fingernails. She sits expectant
and will not be distracted from the unfolding

The storms that make it into poems most often
leave something like disaster in their wake:
the wine-glass elms in pieces on the lawn,

The solitary molar of a streetwalker 
whose body had gone unclaimed 
had a gold filling. 

I  

Things you said in drugstores 
when buying painkillers 
or at your tailor’s 

Never lonelier than in August: 
hour of plenitude—in the country 
the red and golden tassels, 

Rowans—not yet fully rowan red 
not yet in that tone they take on later 
of ember, berry, October, and death. 

I  

O that we might be our ancestors’ ancestors. 
A clump of slime in a warm bog. 
Life and death, fertilizing and parturition 

       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.

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