DOMOVOI

Helpless I watch the sun trace
across the asphalt—my voice speaks
when they are sleeping—
they do not know why I beg for bread
and salt—what feelings 
are mine and what belongs to them—
when I arrived it was without 
blood of chicken or goat—they did not sprinkle 
the four corners of this one bedroom—
didn’t speak my name or say their prayers—
let the dog disturb me in his haste
to shout at the glass—he is
the only one who knows—snarling, 
suspicious—the fur raised 
around his slim neck—should feel 
instead weight beyond cunning—terror—
what he cannot know—what, 
if abused,
could destroy him. Sometimes pain is felt
in one place but found elsewhere—
sometimes the sun when it moves
becomes something living

I WILL GO WITH YOU AND I WILL HOLD YOUR HAND

to reset I used to go to the art gallery, search for a painting that would arrest
no specific feeling—I wanted to be either surprised or held
I’d carry a little notebook with me and sometimes leave my phone at home
or else mostly ignore it or only take pictures—now M
wants to go to the art gallery. we all do. I told her this afternoon
that I was running towards the blue, an imagined blue screen that hung in front of me
like something I would never reach—the Aegean, I said, mourning
the dead recast as heroes, or not heroes exactly but figures of tragedy, ancient 
consequence, betrayed mores—I’d downloaded the audio from a movie that I’d watched
the previous night, listened to it with headphones—she said in her next message
that my voice sounded different than it did elsewhere—
I liked what she said, more alive to itself, something like that—while she searched
for the word I thought immediately and without hesitation it was “open”
something that in this quarantine I have sometimes struggled to do—
tonight I read a book that surprised me, then I got out of bed to fulfill a promise
I kept making and breaking—to smoke weed on the back deck
let myself feel or concentrate on the action—to take deep and slow breaths
back in bed a sound is coming out of my throat
except it is noiseless—full and round and like a kiss on the neck

Susan Stewart: “in listening I am listening to the material history
your connection to all who have been impressed upon you
living or dead, the voice as with the eyes holds the life
of the self”—as we move from one app to another you say 
imagine this is the part where I am inching my chair 
a little closer, ordering dessert—I have become used to 
pacing my apartment, dictating to some future version 
of yourself—maybe like me you play the voice notes several times
both because they are long and because it is easy
to get lost in the trail of your materiality, caught 
in your impressions’ grooves—and once sent rarely go back
as if what is before us is all that is living, what will be caught 
and rendered and cut off, mingled with the sound of your dogs
coughing, the streetcar, music playing gently in another room—
I know these rooms now—the kitchen, the red room, and 
the bed—Stewart again: “the voice in poetry is the voice 
of the lover”—she tells a story about a man who smashes rocks
on the weekend (amateur geologist) and gases butterflies 
in cyanide, an unknowing tribute to his grandmother’s lover
who in a concentration camp broke rocks and died 
by gas—how we return to what we don’t even know
—what is yours and what doesn’t belong to you—at a funeral 
a distant uncle or an older second cousin, this was eight or nine
years ago, said my voice was like that of a doctor, which I took
to mean: cold, circling—a history of this—but now realize
he didn’t specify—a voice can mean many things—who did 
I love, how did it come to me, what was impressed, what was I
wrestling with, what did it mean, and what do you hear now

A GEOGRAPHY

meditating felt like I was pushing through sludge—some final 
resistance, some difficulty—held in the body but not in the brain, or 
in the brain but bodily—passing their house, desire to explain—
what needs to be explained?—light of the sun on the facing buildings, 
neighbours passing in and out, with groceries—on the front lawn a sign
free, cat deceased—easier to throw out than have to speak 
to the street, to keep record—what needs to be explained, what needs to 
illuminated, what needs to be brought—what is the new responsibility, 
what is carried—how can I be sure that what is called up in me is only
muscles or footsteps, vibrations and jarring—something apart from love 
apart from desire, apart from need? know now I’m drawing a boundary:
at the conclusion of this poem whatever it is will be released

turns in the forest—tired of the same loop—the trees
shedding their bark, devastated by bore holes decades after
it was fashionable—remember stomping here through
June & July, talking to you for hours on the phone—we 
hadn’t figured out that the pronoun no longer belonged to us
or at least I hadn’t—once we had tried to clear this patch 
of land—bridge blocked by fallen trees—paths to nowhere
a rotted trunk I push—it topples—early August I was out there
with a machete—full of rage—trimming the tree ends—they
always brushed us when we passed—remember thinking—
boiling—of the two of you—couldn’t let it go—I had grasped
too hard—was still grasping—thought that it was mine to keep—
somehow lost the blade—flew from my hands—into the deepest
muck of the creek—bent low to the water—tried to find it—swished
a stick uncertain through the bed of rotted leaves—nothing—
called Neil and told him—how poetic—appropriate—a lesson
I still needed to learn—hadn’t learned then—still haven’t—
now turning back, walking along the frozen creek—find it 
handle-first in the midst of a bed of weeds—dull blade waving 
in the air—growing there—must have passed it who knows how many
pull it out—dust off—trace its blade—gently now—in the snow
lines as thin as possible

Discover my first Shopify code on this phone: Airbnb verification for a trip that I extended, to wander in a distant city without another person (solve a mystery instead, watch as lightning cracked the dappled screen above the Obra Dinn). Discover also a dream that I recorded in June of last year: bunkering indoors, in the country, while a bear terrorized us—me, an ex, her friends and family—charging wild and violent through the field. I wish I had listened to it, even if nothing would be different now. Another, more recent dream—a gentle one, working in the same room, an awareness of the other, a growing comfort. Then a sweet and gentle catch-up—happy only to learn what has happened in a life I no longer know. Woke up wondering if the dream had been mutual—an instance of two minds speaking what maybe, right now, can’t be said. But I know that not all dreams are visitations. Some are only messages from ourselves. This felt like acceptance, to go so far and no further. Now the Cancer moon is speaking, working things raw. I don’t know exactly even what I’m feeling. What it is about, what is trying to come out. I am trying to listen but some work only brings things more gently to the surface. Whether they breach it is another thing entirely. Some work never fully gets done. 

That’s okay. Took a long bath when I noticed that my heart was racing. Read something far from stilling—about Anna Mae Aquash and the Wounded Knee standoff. Even in the bath my heart wouldn’t stop beating. Afterwards switched coffee for chamomile. A move borrowed from Bolaño, though for different reasons. Today I might have skied but it rained all day. Listening to rain sounds as I write this. More water. More rain. Perhaps later more still will come. 

the patrol

we kept to the dense foliage
six of us engaged to reconnoitre

something had been lost—no one could say what
the moon shone like tipped gasoline 

returning every night no matter the phase
a mood shining wetly on the grass

what was new about it? I asked my captain
he replied only in low and mystical growling

the field spoke in intimate languages
we continued searching—was it ever there?

six of us who couldn’t remember

what I betrayed—moon in Libra—danced around myself 
was always weighing—the future and whatever else—tacking
my horse—sizing up my opponent—no one—riding into 
the target—I was alone in Washington
a woman rode past on a bicycle—I was in the wrong place—I didn’t know 
where I was—let myself forget—let myself look—searched 
through my pockets—it wasn’t there—the cyclist growled 
nevermind—today read about the denial and delusion of John—
a hundred backyard parties—swimming—acres of gin—
in the city a man tries to make his fortune—searches—
is always frustrated, comes home late one night and finds 
what he’d forgotten—his wife, gentle, framed—a slip, the light
of their apartment—this is his fortune—as for myself,
found it too late—a note in my pocket—a traveller with petty complaints
and too many demands—underlined—soon wears out his welcome

this time last year—pacing the bedroom to get cell signal
trying to keep my voice down—sound travels, ricochets
sometimes this house feels like nothing—somehow here 
I am lost—and in the French national archives—standing beneath
posters from May ’68—can’t remember the slogans—something
about imagination something about the future—I have spent
too much time talking—I have talked too much—and something
feels exposed in me, something that’s still here—sitting in on
the Zoom—three of us lined up on the couch—a business meeting
I spend the entire time wondering—what part of me has so much
trouble with this? what part is listening—this month last year
in the Owl’s Club a G-winning poet hooked their leg around mine
and asked me to come home with them—I said I still hadn’t
gotten over my ex, which was true—on Dovercourt felt released and 
sympathetic in the long shadow of some Futurist’s cool blue—
I’m always betraying what I say or think—another photograph
cluster of buildings downtown—I was trying to forget someone 
taking the light in—nuclear white at the top of just one building
always think God is touching down—the second season of Fleabag
plays in the other room—had a crush on a Catholic when it 
came out—but really a crush on some part of myself—something
I thought I was ignoring—light or passion or death—perhaps 
only death—perhaps nothing—reaching—into the light or towards
the brick’s phosphorescence