What comes more easily now
than writing to the dead?
To look back at the body

They are so busy and self-involved as I hear them muttering in the distance
that they strike me sometimes as sheer marvels:
the dishwasher filling its huge blue gullet—a cluck from the timer,

Blood flares from the nostrils.
The lungs, the enormous watermelon bellows,
are lined with it.
Legs conduits,

The best footman’s good
at sweeping up your broken glass,
has a tear for every occasion, knows

 On the cold coast west out of Hoquiam
I’m a stalker with a short-handled gun,
looking for dimples in damp sand to scoop out