4.

I want to abandon I,

make something that can be made

my own despite me, reconstruct shards of my

bed, that summer sweat and tangled-blanket bed,

where the darkness pools, under

sunlight as it falls on the quilt. The

hidden shadow, the shadow

of cold, trembles in fear of

leaves budding, waiting until light leaves

and strips the trees skeletal and

bone-bleached. Imagine holding a wake

in the hours before death, in

the days before the

first day you’ll spend alone. In the first

snow, your footprints (a line that says now,

of course, now) on top of the language of

autumn leaves gone gold. Autumn

and its contractions, each lost second of light filed

away, unread. Don’t chatter. You’ll have more luck with

winter’s language. Learn to speak in silences.