HINTERMAN

The bedroom window has been ajar,
an explanation for the cold. I venture out,
into the out-doors. I look for something 

to pass through, and back through. I walk
into the woods and turn over
logs. Not this one. Farther and farther 

the sounds get closer to me and to one
another. Thump thump. To call something hinter,
there must be a center.  

In an old chimney, I found three dead swifts—
babies that had fallen from a dark nest
to a dark death. Thump. They’re like veins of ore 

beneath this road. Hidden: then, a chance knock
and then a drill, and they disturb the commute, then.
From the hills, all the ore has already been taken. 

The ore docks, now unused, were played
like a great piano in a corner of a great room,
carts unloading into ships, the hush of rock— 

sharp notes across the bay. No more. Now, now.
I find the right log. I lie down in the maggot-trench.
I slake my thirst and sleep and wake.