And all the loved ones troubling my home slipped
through an open window or maybe under
a wooden door the way leaves or white sheets
from a score may find ways up a tree in the woods
to wave off limbs like pennants from faraway ships,
white for surrender, black for metal, once
they defied gravity, floating above our table,
the something casserole, the etcetera greens,
their heads struck together like billiard balls,
I set the pot to boil and let our translator
out of her box, she fished a leaf from my cup
put it to her lips and blew over its surface
to mimic a cuckoo singing a nesting song
through an open window or maybe under
a mountain’s shadow, cold and sweet, her breath filled
the sail of the catboat moving across
my tea on a moonless night, pitched cedar, a sail
like a bed sheet hiding a ghost child, making
suspect its true nature, that it was kaput,
and all the loved ones troubling my home slipped
down a cotton chain of knotted oxfords and underwear,
white for surrender, black for metal, or
were those their voices, in the attic, their spell
of songs trapped on flypaper, 78s,
wax cylinders, spider webs, a steamer chest
pocked with stamps that hounded our whereabouts,
last night I fixed the ends of a red thread
to a butter moth and my tongue and followed it
through the damp air, over a mossified wall,
and across forgotten fields of blue Astroturf
to a mulberry tree at the edge of our village
where I unleashed my tongue and let the moth become
the sail of the catboat moving across
wax cylinders, spider webs, a steamer chest,
were those their voices, in the attic, their spell
that plugged me into a milkweed egg,
a cuckoo’s feint, a stamp from a mislaid realm,
my ragged company until the penny dropped.