Who Walked, and: And Are Ghosts, and: Who Came, and: To Every, and: If the Horse

101 cole swensen Who Walked Who walked across water who gathered there over a gathering mist is a migration. They went down just off the coast and sometimes almost an army balanced out there on the waves but in rags and flagrant in wind. Legend claims that on calm nights you can hear their footsteps from the cliff a soft howl, the children are wading out past the horizon he was sailing alone returning late when he saw an army of children dressed in rage walking over the sea on their hands. CRSUM09 poetry.indd 101 5/22/2009 12:37:04 PM 102 cole swensen And Are Ghosts andareghostsalsoinextricablylinkedtosnow? threedaysittookher to get across Nebraska and the whole time there he was her grandfather in the passenger seat refusing to be frightening and tried to hold him as he came closer and the more snow the farther the body came to be his heartbeat of her sobbing at the side of the road at his funeral as the censer over she alone saw the small wind as it happened to start snowing and her grandmother asked walking out of the church who would have thought a glance and I choke and at every snowfall in her uncanny silence she thinks with the help of his haunting she may someday without the falling. CRSUM09 poetry.indd 102 5/22/2009 12:37:04 PM 103 cole swensen Who Came who came unto him who said that his horse was one among the left was walking down in a shroud of bees would make a man crawl home and hide inside his eyes one William of Glos the horse still alight said, and you without heir said, you who harbor here this story is told in many versions though the place remains the same the century shifts as if a man slipped on his own name and became a repetition in tongues. CRSUM09 poetry.indd 103 5/22/2009 12:37:04 PM 104 cole swensen To Every To everyone there is one and only face after the one that faces That isn’t. It couldn’t. There is one that keeps returning And I become frightened by windows are single And by exactly how much must one have lost We traced the eclipse and watched the slice a little at the edge that glint that means that was I on the bridge That graft had an alum What thought that a cedar Your yardarm and deluge: a face is defined as anything flying with no need of after an organ, an insult is every and agon: we are it. Would not stop your crossing. Now find me. CRSUM09 poetry.indd 104 5/22/2009 12:37:04 PM 105 cole swensen If the Horse If the horse was white and the green hill opened out an animal the lamp of a landscape where the angle of incident light is an index and the grey fence on the other side or any animal so largely domestic, a large white dog, for instance, coming out of the sea alone would be alarming with its head in your lap like a window. CRSUM09 poetry.indd 105 5/22/2009 12:37:04 PM ...