When I think I’m done
my mother tells me,
you have at least seven years.
Seven years of blinking
& having spent another five dollars
on another brass cow pin. Two years
of the dream where you hand me
30 brook trout & I slice open all
of them. On my final cut I look at you
& find that’s not what you’d wanted at all.
Seven camping trips jumping cliffs
into brittle water & biting knuckles
to stop myself calling about nothing
except a sunrise I saw over the lake:
pink flaking in the water & fog
& cows lying down in a far-off field.
Mostly just muscle memory. Some
furious & immature. A one-month stint
reading Neruda’s Song of Despair drunk
at dive bar open mics sort of hoping
it goes viral. Thirty inconclusive
doctors’ visits. Every waking from
a headache, thinking it’s over.
Then the dream about the 30 brook
trout. Ten months combing through
memories under some excuse
wondering at which one I’ll finally
feel that internal tugging let go.
Maybe this: reading late
at Boston Central Library.
I felt something cold on my wrist.
You’d pushed up my sleeve
to check my watch, & said
the time in another language.