When the river burst its banks, I traced the base of 
the mountain with willow roots. Today, the locusts came in, 
took off with what is theirs and left what is 
mine, in the end, nothing. I turned into a great, 
permeable log. Green birds glided through 
in granular sizes. The wind made a flute 
of my body, singing: Am I useful enough? Perhaps 

I have been away too long. I have failed 
to retain the sonnet’s form and measure in loving you. 
You reach across the indissoluble dam of lack 
as the river itself. Not just as the rain nor as laddering fish, 
and especially not as the cargo ship, but as the spectral flood 
of warmth. You are against every border. 
I am against even a state.