Mass

a miniature for E.D.

I see New Englandly, and the miles gauged in the end are my own
Thousand footsteps measured warily around the sinking neck
Of my father’s hill beneath my crisp worn dress that hangs,
Where it drags, like torn soiled flaps of envelopes.
This is what I wrote: All she knew of the universe is that it created
Her cracked dictionary and pictures of shipwrecks; that flesh
Is pulled off into aquatic mouths, and skulls, with remaining charm,

Remain. How can a star the mass of the sun be jammed into a jar
Dark and small as a planet with schooners on it? There are
      defaulting faces,
New acquaintances, in the bowl of kneaded dough. Ah, this vastest
Earthy day. Burn my papers, sister, my letters like poems torn up
By the roots. For how much can one fit into a wicker basket
Lowered from a window with twine—warm bread with dents
Like eye sockets, beetle shells, bombs tied up in fascicles like pleats.