With a whetted whistle to pierce the air,

I begin to cut the gentle fabrics

that breeze between me and the single chair

that sits in the woods before the sap leaks:

Enter the house at the end of the wood;

coax on each light unilumined for years ;

the puffy photos stand for what has stood

always – that is, class, affect, lions, bears:

Linoleum floors too hard to fall on

ground your walking meditation through time,

where memories carve traces of fallen

flesh and duties preserved with salt and rhyme:

With an open door, the breeze can get in

to refresh the patterns sewn into skin.