Just before sunrise, outside Carlisle.

When words failed him, he coughed--
But those plegm yellow sounds got the braille

From the lungs so the tongue could be read aloud.

He did what came natural, next:

Shot a white eye into the pond's air, and watched it
Over the stock divot, disappearing in flapping ink--

The indentations rose to places where they

Could recite their iliads in clouds.

(He thought if only his wings would touch the infinite watertips.)

The maple.

There are certain words that spook me to say them.
When I can convince them to come out

They arrive, smarter and tauter than I could imagine.

I say to myself,

ouch, I do not belong here in this old pill-colored palace.

And the heft and the pine in my voice summons the past.