Driftless Elegy (audio only)
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The God of Nothingness
My father fell from the boat.
His balance had been poor for some time.
He had gone out in the boat with his dog
hunting ducks in a marsh near Trempealeau, Wisconsin.
No one else was near
save the wiry farmer scraping the gutters in the cow barn
who was deaf in one ear from years of machines—
and he was half a mile away.
My father fell from the boat
and the water pulled up around him, filled
his waders and this drew him down.
He descended into water the color of weak coffee.
The dog went into the water too,
2017
Prayer for a Birthday
My privilege and my proof, pressing your eternal skin to mine— I feel your fingers touching down on the crown of my head where I pray they remain during this life and in the next. The intricacies of your world astound me. You flickered through the rooms where my mother dwelt, when I was naked and formless as a seal, sensitive to the tides of her body.
2013
Gone is Gone
I was there at the edge of Never,
of Once Been, bearing the night’s hide
2019