by Michael Carlson

All morning I’ve remembered St. Ignacio’s bruise，jaundiced seagulls over Quonset， November and the gross white sky. Days so long you walk home fifteen miles from the restaurant.

Same waitress every day of your life and she never remembers your allergies.

Nothing on the map but scone crumbs and a drop of tea. Just manifold food and a dead request to bury the last of your seven receipts.

Mother of foster-wit，father of straw，I can see how silence takes the place of those who cut their thoughts in stone before they need them.

Stone is the past，and the past is a form of flattery.

Last winter，groups of children sent letters in sadness for the late Christmas suicide.

Addressed to those who managed the fishery，who named the docks and decided the colors of unfinished boats，the only way to read them was alive.

To think out loud about those children’s names was to forget what you meant by dying.