Status Updates From Some Say the Lark

I'm struck dumb by knowing
that until recently you did not exist,

the way I know one day I won't exist,
and that's a kind of prayer

I don't have the words for. Your father
and I are atheists, but you are free

to measure the sky as you will and decide
accordingly.

I've been thinking about things
as the source from which all thought rises.
Not as omens, signs, talismans, tokens, symbols,
figures of speech, or ideas.

A thing introduces a thought and is never more than a thing.
Yes, that sounds right.

14
Would I hope myself into yet another quiet vessel, striving against bad weather?

15
This vessel, an argument against vindication.

7
Reader, they are looking at the future.

It is possible I've written all I can
about her

I ask my mother
if she watches the audience or the two people on the stage. She does not
think this is the right question.

It was a mistake to ask the $30 prophet
for a $20 prophecy.

It is not good to think
of everything as a mistake.

but she's in my head, the lonely field
I imagine each night, awake again
nowhere else to go.

Outside, the buses must be un-routing.

Therefore, what is the graveyard
if not a sequence of recanting waves?

So? So? the sea asks.

I envy the one-word lexicon,

the sea's singular mastery.
So!—to declare certitude.

So?—to not care.

And so much not to care about!

So what
to do about the thrum
of my thinking, the dangerous
pawing at the door?

Where is your body, Sister Elizabeth,

under the holy folds, the heat
that makes nonsense of your dress?

I wear decay as a necklace
to spook myself. A twig in your pocket, Sister Elizabeth,

or a compass? (We are out of time.)

Is this where
the river ends? Holy humidity,
          can nuns wear shorts?

Or the way Sister Elizabeth hikes up her skirt.

Joyful with dirt.

If we follow his body,
we'll discover how the river ends:

God's in
the soccer field. He's in your messenger bag
deleting your stump speech. Like the rain, he's all

nevermind.