It never covered everything like a shroud.
It was always suspended over
like nineteenth-century women waiting for proposals.
It was an alphabet on top
of the one you knew, a redo,
trills on the scales, glissando.
It knew what it was doing between things.
It is very patient, teaching
you, it was different from the world, it waited
for you to say, I do not understand.
I was like everyone else.
I stopped lifting weights and walked
instead, I did not shop
if I could help it, found new use
for what I had.
I did inside what I had done
in the world. When I thought
about what I lost, I loved myself.
It comes from the ocean.
It means our interior burns.
Our coolness burns, miles inland.
It was haphazard.
It loved to see you altered
in your usual location.
