what am I to do with my imagination—& the person in me

trembles—& there is still

innocence, it is starting up

somewhere

even now, and the strange swelling of the so-called Milky Way, and

the sound of the

wings of the bird as it lifts off

...

what is coming, what is true, & all the blood, millennia, drained to

stave off

the future, stave off,

& the armies on the far plains, the gleam off their armor now in this

bird’s

eye, as it flies towards me

then over, & the sound of the thousands of men assembled at

all cost now

the sound of the bird lifting, thick, rustling where it flies over—only

see, it is

a hawk after all, I had not seen

clearly, it has gone to hunt in the next field, & the chlorophyll is

coursing, & the sun is

sucked in, & the chief priest walks away now where what remains

of

the body is left

as is customary for the local birds.

—Jorie Graham, “Embodies” (excerpt)