ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 3
MY FIRST LANGUAGE
alive in this time
I think of the men and women
of a thousand years from tomorrow
I am still learning my first language
and the sentences I now practice
must be completed by them
I feel I know their sadness and weakness
I too ran out of strength
and became accomplished at grieving
I share their fascination with swans and fire
I save boxes I empty
thinking to fill them again
in a dry riverbed I picked up stones
because under some red orange salamanders
hid like electricity concealed inside the wires
there was someone calling my name
so I turned and hollered it back
exactly as it had been said--
will it go for a thousand years
what does it matter can I make it
simply leave my body