A dove! I said.
What I meant was all the colors
from ashes to singing.
What I meant was news
of my death,
a threshold
dividing my unmade tears
from the finished song.
Night, I said.
As in, Night after night,
as in, Every night is two nights,
a house under a hill. Night,
as in, Night adds to night
without remainder,
and all the nights are one
night, a book
whose every word is outcome,
whose every page is lifelong sentence.
What I meant was the wind
burying the dead.
What I should have said was:
A hand fallen still
at the foot of the burning hours,
paused between the written and the unwritten.
It was a mourning dove in my eaves.
And maybe I meant to say:
Child of time.
Maybe I should have called out:
Child of eternity.
Or did I only mean to ask, Whose face
did I glimpse last night in a dream?