Time is told from either side
the clock grinding on the wall
the time until and the time since
turning over together
in the compost of your thinking,
from the dazzle mechanic to
the bride of the sky, from dead pet to
dead pet, with the dead elders to
work the earth of days and dreams.
The word itself arrives a great bird,
high and sharp against
the dark parts of heaven, a sound
too soaring and sinking at once,
as if itself a placeholder
part of some unnavigable inheritance
left over from the syllabary of seafarers,
a word to attach to the sojourns of
the albatross or some sailor’s salty longing
gazing at the moon drowning as
the ache for another halfway ‘round the world.
It is to say that my heart
is a ravening animal and
a faithful flame, it is a wing turned
into the cold and brutal wind,
it is a letter sent towards uncertain shores,
a voice sure and sudden,
a weeping through the evenings seams.