Thanks also to Stanford University, Texas Tech University, and McNeese State University for generous fellowships and grants that allowed me to complete this book.
“The Choice” is for Aaron Kelly and Mike Wiley; “The Seven Thunders” is for Morri Creech; “The Orchard” is in memory of Virginia Shewmaker.
For the fallen
If in ly3t we witnesse puyr devynyte, þen shadowe herberwen our humanyte.
—Anonymous fragment, 14th century
Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher.
—Baudelaire, “The Albatross”
Contents
On a Chinese Festival Scene Carved into the Casque of a Helmeted Hornbill
Photo Found on a Dead Man’s Phone
Doppelgänger
Who is this double goer, this familiar stranger
following me with pockets full of moths—
this moonlit strider, hawker who won’t pass by
even when I pause to make a call—this changer
of pace and posture, alley pisser with swaths
of unrequited time?
What does he spy
in the limp rose on my lapel—in my unrest—
the half-smoked cigarette, my borrowed clothes?
Why