I apply calling up the previous for reassurance.
That occasions live longer than themselves. {That a} day

of no nice non-public acquire or loss inscribes itself
someplace. The way in which I stay in my thoughts

two snakes entwined and falling
to my toes as I walked below an oak tree

one July. The way in which I ran down the hill
as though the snakes cared sufficient to chase me.

The way in which that second stalks me, its tongue
flickering even now as I cross below positive

boughs and worry or really feel a thud
of what’s now not there, which twists

round what’s: the air, the leaves,
the roots that weave out and in of the dust,

serpentine and mingling with the previous
to make a rain of snakes without end

conceivable. I wish to consider that unusual
timber—from which no our bodies fall—

can depart an imprint, furrow my mind with their
forgettable grey branches in the course of wintry weather,

the entire leaves having already dropped from them.