You right the nail on this wall
as if it were a boundary stone
was already used to distances
before the house was built
board by board inside a picture frame
so the shingles can’t fall out
make it impossible to prove
crows once gathered here to mourn
the way ancients preserved their dead
—it’s your usual photograph
wrapped in glass, flooded
as you would water a beginner tree
once its likeness sets up shop
getting it ready to stay
take hold a wall that is in need.
You warm these ashes one by one
the way every shore now ends
in pieces, piled among your graveside stone
as rain—from the start, its great height
narrowed, became a stream, overflowing
with the wishes mourners leave
to break the surface where moonlight
is now a sea, could guide you back
then grow a second moon, keep you company
hold your hand, pull one night from another
that is no where on the calendar, whose shadow
is still covered with darkness and gathering.