Epistemology

What does it mean to say we know the properties
of ice, of snow? The wheat berries piled in metal bins

in the silos. The house on a corner lot, properly
broken down, the septic tank leaking

into the closets for years, rats in the attic, box
upon box upon box of belongings that belong

to the long dead. Sex toys and pornography.
Money stashed in old socks. In ties. In tobacco

tins. The house was once lovely. Flower boxes at the sills.
Large picture windows that held up the prairie

sky, faces of the parents we knew little, if at all.
How easily people end up like this, perhaps. We stand

at the tree line, and I can’t decide if Mother’s Ruin
is an appropriate name for gin, or screech,

or every century where someone died bleary-
eyed, a bottle within reach. How do we love

what is damaged? Ahead, the valley rivers through
the city. Ahead, the frozen prairie, the lone cross-

country skier. No one will find us here, I fear.
Here, the world is desperately bare. What now

is the prairie sky, if not another relic, burning?