This daughter is a mask of soap

to scratch with long nails.

This one I can wipe down

and write on again.

This daughter is ants

and thorny undergrowth.

This one is a drawing

in blue ink washed by rain.

Their matricidal raisin eyes,

their hair unwashed and wild.

Girls, there’s no way to  stop

the wind bleaching your  thighs.

FURTHEST WEST

Everything moves to the side

an inch and I lose my step.

No breeze, but the leaves tremble.

As animals run in my veins with furred feet,

my hostess preserves her astringent calm,

her solitude in my long company.

Her talent for silence is so developed

that, when she speaks, the rare syllables

catch in her throat like fish bones.

This evening, as we eat our omelet

of squirrel meat and sea birds’ eggs,

I think, but do not say,

that this must be what it was like

when people died remembering

only things they had seen themselves,

and those images died with them,

charcoal sketches of woodsmoke

in the air. I think, as the sun

burns down like oil on the water,

that we are living in the silence

between two histories.