Sequestered Writing

    Horses were turned loose in the child's sorrow. Black and roan， cantering through snow.

    The way light fills the hand with light， November with graves， infancy¹ with white.

    White. Given lilacs， lilacs disappear. Then low voices rising in walls.

    The way they withdrew from the child's body and spoke² as if it were not there.

    What ghost comes to the bedside whispering You？

    —— With its no one without its I ——

    A dwarf³ ghost？ A closet of empty clothes？

    Ours was a ghost who stole household goods. Nothing anyone would miss.

    Supper plates. Apples. Barbed wire behind the house.

    At the end of the hall， it sleepwalks into a mirror wearing mother's robe.

    A bedsheet lifts from the bed and hovers⁴. Face with no face. Come here.

    The bookcase knows， and also the darkness of books. Long passages into，

    Endless histories toward， sleeping pages about. Why else toss gloves into a grave？

    A language that once sent ravens⁵ through firs. The open world from which it came.

    Words holding the scent⁶ of an asylum⁷ fifty years. It is fifty years， then.

    The child hears from within： Come here and know， below

    And unbeknownst to us， what these fields had been.