I am in the cold museum
_____of your thinking—
now think me a sepia
_____thought. Tag
and title me, “loved one”:
_____lay a label on
my fistful of hair. There is
_____always the plastic hard
water-curtain. The stage light,
_____bugs teeming
under glass. This is nothing
like being afraid. It’s carrying
_____your leather satchel
into eternity I dislike—it’s
_____the predictable
marsh extending me this blank
_____look. It’s the painting
of the cape that never
_____comes. And here I am,
kneeling, threading my hook.
_____A sea bass opens his mouth
in a silent river, a bottom lip
_____collecting another, then
another white piece of dust.