CAMP MEANS FIELD

means open   summer means temporary means   go there someday

I tell my son means   naming the sun and wild flower  by color  burnt

blue means   doesn’t exist in nature means   tasteless but blue means

camp and war  in the body means  adhering   to doctrine or cause

camp-fever   epidemic-fever     life-fever    never-burnt-down-

fever means  endless  means as far as the eye  can see  but what if

the eyes  are gone  and in their place are  flowers   means

in their sockets are stones  my son   a stone in my belly then

my ancestors   stones around us   means field of stones

is not camp   even if camp means field  means  I have to stop

writing stones  carrying  throwing     burying stones  weighing

the body down             with what it’s lost

   flowers I say  camp means field  I say it again means

this isn’t my meaning my  lager’ lagging stone  means what can be

remembered or named means  lagged behind means lagend without water

is still  a field  growing largess  to lagrima to grime amalgam

of languages I don’t know  what they mean or where they come from

   but лагерь  means field because field means    everything

crammed below the earth means    things growing   out that were once

pushed down   camp means when I pushed my son   out of me

I felt     I’d birthed                a stone

flowers  loose in my moleskin brought back from stone fields   means

the fields  we were pushed out from means the fields we were pushed into

means there is no camp to return to   but there is still a field   polye

margin square bent  brim  bound  domain range  province provide expanse

expanding flat means  flat means    flattened earth of stones

    means stoned bodies or bodied stones  means when you hear

Holocaust  wholly burnt or burned whole  sacrifice by fire  burnt

offering caustic whole  you don’t hear     stones or fields or flowers

    mean you don’t hear blue   because gone and gray and counted

weigh far more   and you don’t hear   a name because there are

too many   or a body   because the same   means you hear in plurals

in bodies    you imagine them means magnitude  and you weigh

how wrong it is    to figure them this way   their lack or lessening

means them as stones  again or still but when my son hears

holy and challah and cost  years and years from now   hears it

over breakfast with his family perhaps   he will hear    a field means

the ghost who lingers there    means    imagine   rowing wild

chicory  dog violets  snow-drops  baby blues  as far  as the eye can see