The nouns unknown
to us
incognate
or unrecognizable
as our own
forensic
excavations
the quake’s shock aftershock
my noun-less noon
my noon-less noun
and shadows spool
into a reticence
of an inhibited
nun-habit blue
My young mother walks
through the blue
flowering
of a potato field
on the collective farm
Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise
is broadcast from the loudspeakers
perched atop their posts
—where storks also make
their nests—
and fills the field
with its wordless hymn
fills my young mother
fills me
though I don’t
exist
will never exist in that broad blue field
though I feel
as though I must
remember it
My father
in wartime
a hungry boy
among other
hungry boys
ate carrion
an old man now
he chokes
on a sob
as he almost
says it
carrion
is my word
is too beautiful
a word
for what
my father can’t
or couldn’t
swallow
Army of one
of no one
of no
you are just
one
woman
one atomic noun
an unknown
soldier
kneeling
on the fallen
bright
and brittle
leaves
in this grove
this yar
at the altar
of the sky
unmoved
and mutable
cathedral
where black birds
flutter in the air
like ash
Return to me
or return me
to myself
I’ve been away
too long
I have used the word knock
against the word door
I have worked
the word key
into the word lock
and turned it
Someone has changed
the locks or the words
for things
have changed
For the most
ordinary things