All my tremolos rise past midnight
and I carry them down
the hill to my foggy
little corner where I store
some of my disorder. Standing
on the periphery
of light like this, I am able
to think we go on
from our addresses, absorbed
into what is less like confinement
and more our frail
territories. We’re glad
to be reminded to succeed
in our staying. To sing
the inevitable echoes.
Such an album of prayers
I’ve carried across
the country: from my lonely
New York into Boston
with its chosen darkness. Outside,
right now in the weighted
desert with its endless
edges, I arrange all my
histories, and the moon
is eternal. I wait for it
to become common, and while I wait
I whisper a song
I learned from a woman
in a slow office, 23rd floor—
a woman without features,
just a white head scarf.
She knew grief, but didn’t know
she was teaching me
a guarantee for getting through
every next day: some words
in some order, those words
I could keep until I found
my way home. The sound
as steering, always beside me.