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.