‘Pilot Island’

was stopped here and remained fighting
in one place until it turned dark
– Danish military report, Second War of Schleswig Holstein,
11 February 1864


So many ladders into the dusk, metal hooped
escape routes from the either/or,

where a darkening hole waits for the body
to enter and tend its green lamp.

*

Out on the salt marsh, geese argue over elsewhere,
like a party overheard in other rooms
rising to greet those who bring news
of intimate distances woven in overcoat and voice.

*

Let me loan you loneliness sole clump of trees,
brainchild of the wind, tearing mouths
in the rush of space, un-singing
the idea of home, like something
...