by Eileen Myles

The crows
were never here

I don’t remember them
and you could
put your hand in the water
& hit a fish or two

now you gotta
go look.

She was the first one from
India to outer space.

I don’t remember
those trees
and I don’t remember
it being so hot

but winter used to be
really cold
You remember that.
I know to hold back
tends to keep the thing
going but I don’t

I like it kind of square
all there.
We played the reading
at Gallery 6
maybe it was his
description of it.
We read it
in class

some things get saved.
I like to return.

I like the farmer
who studied science
came home
and made it work

He was Japanese.
He stabbed himself right
in the chest. Like
Elliot, not Kurt.

The two kinds
of death are different.

Of all the songs
you ever wrote
you wrote some

guy in the airport
read about farming
he had big thick thighs
and he looked like a businessman
and that’s what farmers
look like today.

He was trying to get better. To improve
his lot

this immense restlessness on the
plane

remembering Rae
thought the birds had changed

and something else

and Peter said the fish
were practically everywhere
and now they’re not.

I don’t know myself
and that’s a sin.