composed in response to Diane Glancy reading from The Dream of a Broken Field

          Drove 900 miles though I did not know sumac groves.     Through the night solace – I still had nowhere to go – the transport trucks like lead animals.          Nocturnal, all things a man I never really liked – a long handle pulling a relationship I didn’t really see, a welt pointed inward like fuel.

          My mother an exit, no visible proof of island in black house, a smut in sea-frame

bumping against continent.     I used twigs, steady towards expectation, towards the sea, my sister.

                                     Heard sentence celebrating fish like outlet. Must have been beginning of story

because I was drawn to words I didn’t know how to hide, make dependent.

                                                      I was still alone though I was with other fish in closet. I was kept in a book between sleeves.                          My sister cause of this kept sugar.

                                                                     I needed to let her go, pushed her into ocean. I burnt her at

stake. Over my shoulder, she raised up her bulletproof vest, her own hardy fragment towards future.