undone. As here these words cannot be taken back into the windless wide
unsaid. No. These changes to the living skin of silence, there where your dis-
appearance into nonlife, into no-longer-ever-again-in-life—no—no longer in
creation, no, no more of your kind—changes silence to what can I call it—ex-
tinction—expiration—this new forever—the small boy on the boat in the dark says—says I
was holding you when we got on the boat in the deep night—says I can still feel
you now I feel you—others are pressed against me but this weight in the dark it is
you—I feel for your legs your feet—are you you or are these the pressings of
others—others are not me—once in a while a flashlight but so brief we cannot
be seen. Then it occurs. It cannot be. And never again arrives—is it for you or
me it arrives—the moment that cannot be undone. And we are no longer ever again in life
together. Mother. I need you. I cannot be taken back now into the unmade, un-
conceived, unborn, back. You. As here these words in the world you left behind. It’s not
the world exactly, now. It’s the now. That new world. Now. My body keeps living here
under my mind, slackened by thirst. I see light flick and I say to the air I still have
you. I have surfaces and wandering. Like a root always becoming more by going
on. The blackbird in the thicket understands me I think. It shoots through vacancy & knows
all is down to size, direction, speed. I could not find you, I wrestled the men who thought
to rescue me, me who am dead now, I said where is my mother to death which is this
wave, alive, contagious, & scent of brine, & seagulls slicing and feeding—such a soaring
machine. I spent with her a night my hand too tiny for her to find I think though I
touched and touched hoping day would take me into its teeth, interrupt this glassy
hammering of voice and sea, we are mangled, heaps, there are so many ways to be
afraid, it’s all right, we were locked together in years, if we don’t land again let’s not
land again. But don’t leave me. I am a work in the turning galaxy at the bottom of
this dinghy, I am a word that cannot be taken back, I want a home, how many inches is
a home, the gulls pull the day aside so I can see, I need a place to be, please not this
camp, this film of sand on me, the dry day’s lip, everywhere tin’s shadow-splash across my
only face…. Abundance where are you. An inch is enough. Moon and a vacant field
with no fear. Normal chimneys with morning-smoke. Water. Enough water. The shape of
water as it falls. Into my hands. To have a bucket of my own. To watch a long time the
water & feel there is always more. To not be afraid of sun. Of wind. My fingers remember,
I wish they would forget. I put them in the water that is not here. I can put them in that
water. It is a special kind. I have imagined it. Therefore it lies so still upon reality. It cannot
be undone, this water without a voice screaming to me of morning arriving
gradually and sharply, as if a fever lifting, dawn like a hand on my forehead saying the
fever broke, today will be a different day than yesterday, the cloth damp now over my
eyes, day is the simplest phrase, I can hear outside the unevenness of the stones, it is our
village again, light spliced by the cries of birds at dawn, I can hear the sand on the
road heading off towards the village, hear oranges pressing against their skins in their
live trees, hiss of morning coming on, I have not imagined it, it’s day, we have not left yet,
it is not yet decided, drought touches the side of our house, shade is the simplest phrase,
a goat brays in the distance, which is not too far, then wind, the simplest phrase, it has not
yet said we have to flee, the froth of the goats’ milk into the bucket is whispering the
simplest phrase, the broken surface of the well, where the wheel turns, the bucket rakes,
I hear it land, I should not have been afraid, I was not afraid, there was no
fear, ancient toughness lined it all, we were submerged in time not history, you take
your hand off my eyes and lift the cloth. The cool is good. It cannot be undone, it
cannot be unsaid unmade unthought unknown unrecognized untrued. Until it can.
