was dead, face down
in the river, until I raised her
to air on the dock by her tangled

to say yes. I believed as a child.
Meaning I feared. Or I loved.
Or stood in the sun braced for those
stupid photos—Easter, Christmas, Fourth of July.

Redact, redact, erase, cross out, tear it up,
let the wind take it. And wind
showers down embers.

That’s sleep, isn’t it? So many

Honest-to-god color, god said, for artists. 
But first, graveyards, to grind the human femur 
in secret, for bone black. And cuttlefish 

September, with a paintbrush, on Monadnock.
October, in the backyard, with a silencer.
November, on a windowpane, with a skate blade.

But when I rap harder, that hysterical feint—the flip
to her back, eyes slammed shut, skinny
tongue lolling in the snow.

Look out! my nightmare shouted,
as she crashed across the porch, flailing the shadows with a crutch.
Dark wind blew a storm of dust, or feathers, and lightning

Shadows from the spruce woods slouch down the hill,
the windmill’s crippled shadow
pierces the house, a blue fog spirits

In the living room of the trailer, the father of the woman
I love calls the family into a huddle.
Dinner is over, the charcoal is ash on the grill.

The sign itself is shab you need, blue neon half-circling
a curvy silhouette. And rain spilling the gutters
seems the perfect stage effect.

who glimpses
the dead without shuddering?