Cover
Contents
I. Fall Risk
[mine eyes dry & cannot see have]
“corpses like night soil / get carted off”
it was a common night
household tales
morrow, morrow, valentine
witchspeak
burn permit
burnt offering
fall risk
coming, mama, t o carry
recurrence
the palace
“in the old time, they used to putt a penny in the dead persons mouth”
the child breaks a glass of milk
ii. ordinary time
“in your absence there are no mortal banquets.”
measure of ordinary time
for my mother whose mother is ill
“let the quick then cast f orth the dead”
blood lines
“she died — this was the way she died.”
primer
iii. night burial
[quiet & you are not among the]
[look upon your servant]
[thanksgiving I sat with her]
[fled to the woods]
[my other grandmother has stopped sewing.]
[after the rains a path of needles,]
[just wear it]
[how to know someone is dying?]
[in the opera, Manon speaks]
[keen & cry out for the]
[my husband holds my hand]
[my mother fell into a sleep]
[for one minute]
[dhe left the room & she stopped breathing]
[enter Mary]
[daughters sing from the backseat]
[on foot my daughters aim stiff-arms, a Stop!]
[give me haint blue inside of which]
[when she came home]
[I am mad at you]
[you, she, we, I can’t,]
[night burial, a winter sky, a winter ground]
[you lie here do]
[an ancient loop—someone]
[your mother dies.]
iv. the former object of my every thing
“for this daie your daughter hathe bene bothe alive and deade”
transcendental étude
gallery
primer
to lay sod on a grave
the former object of my everything
notes
acknowledgments