the consuming repellence of feeling

The Consuming Repellence of Feeling

I began doing much of my quieter busywork in

juniper trees, live oaks, limestone cliffs. As far as

presenting to me a lovely, elegant woman with

snow-covered sand dunes, plotting my own future,

eyes dull with shock and a dawning realization,

the nuns had grudgingly sent us home early.

Be responsible for some folks and then come

out from behind a sycamore tree, and then

reduce sum totals of suffering; a growing intuition

my place in the passage of time, my inheritance

simply a word. It joins separate things

sagged in their rotting casings,

a much more effective partnership.