Jorie Graham

If I bring this voiceIf I came backagain when Icome backagain if again it ispossible required withthis voice still this voice so narrow itspassage still untrustworthy, too deep therequest, too slippery theladdering of –what was the tongue –cold – arrowing – may it notbe English – if they inviteme back – some morninglike thisafter historyif they drag meback...

burns its small holein the tentwhere 3 lines on paperhave just been written down,

the pen is lifting offas the missilehits, the zero pointwhere you call

into the face ofyour childwhich does not move,the zero

of its lid you’re pushing up

seeking the gaze –just lookat me, lookback at me its father is

screaming, the zerowhere he only findsa hand, a partof the arm, where he picks them up...

of my own died. Idid not die. Mylove did not. Is intact. Ichecked. Beloveds

were not dragged

into the net ofthe eye ofthe drone, were not dis-membered into

instant ancestors –not even memories, toofast, too torn, no. Screams. Wewoke. The sun

came first inveins of red then rips,pinks, then rose asusual. We

didn’t look up, atefast, were late, the day filledup, we askedall our

questions...

The spacesbetweenthings beganspeaking. So it was

I understood Iwas nowto remainsilent. Saw how

we were allplungedinto this new strengtheningsilence. Was it

vision was it

catastrophe. This

first personI use hereas a way of referringto my being in

abeyance – to myunknowing –though who are we kidding,it was not of the radiant kind

where we wait in linewillinglyeyes closedfor the tap on the...

it came, before the turn in the cherishedwind, what we called history, the turntowards, all of it more and moretowards – what is it that iscoming – must come – unfathomable, unbreakable – you want it so, yourfuture, no thefuture, sobadly – you standon the threshold of your century as on a highparapet, brush in hand, a ladder wrinkling the air as it rises,a kind of...