The body brought out like empty wood,

silent as a dark whale in dark water.

The body a citadel in trees: getting there was

land-swimming, pushing aside loneliness,

a white man in rubber boots and all

his little dogs, the sun flashing in and out

like god’s face upon the water before

the invention of cardboard and radio

transmissions. And then the second before

she knew she was going to give it all up—

everything, all of it, until she was walking

down the road in the dark with lungs full

of the scattered, old-fashioned promises

of beginning again—the house

of her body would light up, the feet

marching as they had been instructed to do.