That summer in West Virginia:
washing myself clean
with brown water
from the Ohio river.
I saw gar sunning themselves
near the surface: fish with a thousand teeth,
fisherman’s nuisance. Like me:
take the bait and sink.

Matt takes us to the woods
and promises a surprise.
We slash brush for miles,
and I bleed. Thorns cut up and down
my skin. So easy to get lost out here –
multiflora rose so thick you can’t see
the sky. Crawl back to where you came from.
Plants move so slow, but I have patience.

Back when I could tell the birds apart
I held a dead wood thrush
in my hand
and it felt like air.
Eyes closed and tilted to the side –
because of the window, because a bird’s eyes
are not adapted to see glass. I wanted to bury it,
but instead I laid it in the grass.
For the worms: because we are all going.

We find the magnolias. No one is quite sure
how they ended up here, but they look exotic,
different from the pawpaws and oaks
with their shiny leaves and white flowers.
To be a bird in the magnolias – hermit thrush,
singing in a language too old to understand.
Voice of god calling out to say: come home.
If only I knew how to listen.