You are otherwise each time you dream. The train arrives in Nice. You reach for your suitcase
& the aborted baby tumbles down alive. Into your arms, his milky breath. His uncanny reach.
Drought’s engine picks up speed. Rivers, once a ligature of sheen, smear to grease. Lord,
bless the not-yet-arrived. Wildfires unwilling to be touched. Forests dying as they reach.
That’s all I wanted, he says. Your body crumpled like a day-old corsage. A raven shrieks.
He zips up his pants. Pockets the gun. Wild bird of your before, perches out of reach.
Wingless, we invented music. This first morning of rain you can believe again
in a cappella green. Joy to lift the body’s stone. Fog to lower the sky’s snowy reach.
All being is fenestra. And the mind a churchyard, a market, an orphic meet-&-greet. This
world wrecks us, then it enters. The body leaves. The soul is fallout, drifting far outside of reach.
