Arriving
Forget everything you think
you ever knew, your mother’s voice
while you floated within her, the songs
you think she sang.
Forget that light is liquid dreaming,
that stars are white holes in the ceiling
just after sleep comes.
Listen for footfalls on the sidewalk
and the sound when callers knock.
Note for the first time the chair’s
worn fabric when the cardinal
ceases its singing. It will be
as if you never left.
Table of Contents
Curriculum Vitae
My Teachers
Evening
The Distances
Voice Mail
On First Seeing My Granddaughter in Sonograms
Homeless
Despair Parts
Lost
Newspaper Mulch
The Human Sloughs Its Skin More Subtly
Absorbed
Against Gravity
Exit Wounds
March First—A Marsh—First Mark
Accounting
Dying
Remains
Preparing to Leave
by Stephen Bunch
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The Lives You Touch Publications
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