Many Medicines

At night, in a clearing of the forest beyondthe little house, dead horses nosed through clover.Milk-bottles frosted with dust in the attic windows.Green bottles hanging from wires in the trees.A piece of paper with my name on itI am still not allowed to see. The blanketI wore all day in that place. We keptclapping our hands together in a children's game.

I learned to go down the radio dial slowuntil I found a decade I liked. We keptforgetting how to breathe except closed in the sunroom,where the air was still. The other roomseach held a different wind that shookthe flowers & made the chairs waver.

The snow left broken letters etchedon the glass, & branches tapped patterns.Because we were small & growing smaller,we could call to the storm-eyeby singing on the steps. Sometimesit sang back in draughts.

Some voices are like a bell underwater.There was this bitter clutterpiling up around the stove. Tree-wirespulled at me. The cupupside down was a signal of danger,or it just meant it was clean. The horsesstomped quietly, & we keptclapping faster to the rhythm.

We could not want to want. We neededit to be snowing to sleep. The snowwas ripped bits, paper stampedwith both our names. We dug deeper gravesfor ourselves in the sheets. The doorclosed tight so I could breathe.