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Procession Little wren, your body is breaking down into air. I find you under my desk, —how long dead?— What do the hollowed black cones of your eyes and your tiny claws have to tell me about home? Your small patch of city yard, droop of telephone wire on your daily flight, the wind draft over the Allegheny? I pray to the four directions then put your body in the trash, cover you with typewriter ribbons and calendar days and press down. Ten minutes later I dig you out, carry you outside in the styrofoam box and we walk the streets of Etna while big-haired women watch from their porches. Across Butler Street, the workers of the Tippins Machinery Plant break open their lunch buckets on the stone wall. At the churchyard I dig behind the hydrangea with my father’s tack-hammer and cast-iron awl. Everything goes on without us. If I could see the cities inside you, if I could find my own ocean of light— In the hole: paper with a stamp of an orange sun on it and the word: /FINISHED/ a piece of carnelian and last words: I am sorry. I know you were alone in this room of poems. I tried to hide your death. RIP May 29th Calvert United Presbyterian Church. 48 BeattyPGS:Layout 1 2/5/08 8:28 PM Page 48 ...

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