the relation of time to matter as the pile of ash swept in a gutter
when a board was siding, was a closet, was a touchstone
to those living beside it, was the fact of opening and closing the door
reminiscent of the bench on which we sat looking up another time at the tree
that tree still living despite the ash, the encrusted, the charred leaves
we get fire photos, photos of the necklaces saved at the last,
three of her aunt’s paintings, a disfigured, a blackened, a portion,
a word has its history and lingers through time: Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure
all her photographs gone, a record of what was it a record of, even that wiped out
as portions of how does one think oneself still here
what did he look like I stare at my father in a photo on the dresser
and how can his voice look like that face when I’m older than he was then
and can’t see well and where was it taken and where are the rest of us in the blurry
background it looks like I don’t know what
I can’t thread a needle, can’t see the eye of a needle, a moth made a hole in it
now gone, the one I was insistently in, now swept into kingdom come
one wants to move on, perhaps it’s a chance, it’s time, it’s the upstate,
is an island, is where it snows in my mouth, in my eyes
I’ve never seen anything like it she says over and over and unable to move out of saying
it over and over, she says never and reaches out to touch the wall that isn’t
and begins to count until she knows a minute has passed
