Abigail Chabitnoy

I.

I buried my bones.

              No trace was left.

I buried my bones and the landscape

              became settled in [its] disturbances.

There’s no telling where the hand that digs might

              unearth the outline of a dwelling place,

                            the shape of ivory in the process [of]

becoming human.

              It is not evident.

I buried my bones in the fault

              [where] they were of little consequence,

                            more matters to settle

in the end.

              The land remembered only now.

I want to live somewhere old

              in the earth. On the water

                            now there are many boats, [but] the vermin

they are hunting [is] dead

              with metal feet. His pelt

                            [is] already sinking out of reach.

Old in the water. Let me sink

              [mine] in enough earth to bury [me].

II.

Mother, it was my fault. I buried each of my other selves

              until I couldn’t see [ ] the earth was full.

              I was born(e) in this wound mother.

Singing made i[t] so. Steel singing. Destined

              men singing mercantile songs, manifesting

              swindling songs.

Singing say you see. Singing beautiful

              spacious skies, singing

              the brave in d(r)ead silence reposes.

You sang this land for me, (m)other. Each night

              I must find a new way to lay these arms

              stiff under the weight [of] my body.

III.

I don’t know what I expected but at length I found myself a loan. I found

myself a part in a room of my own making, susceptible to drowning, to cave-ins.

I couldn’t hold a shape my own among so many bones and matter besides.

The field turned relic into me.

IV.

                            like this, Apaq?

can I wear these faces? which [way]

              shall I bend these bones?

does my skin show [through] these furs?

              do my metal feet b(ear) too much weight?

can I bend my arms in light of mo(u)rning?

                            can I bend them in name for what I (k)now believe?

V.

Return every (last) bone to the l[and]

              I will shape my body in the sound [of]

                            waves breaking the shore

[if] singing made it so

              these days will not be many

                            no(w)

VI.

I wonder if you hear me, Apaq.

              I wonder if I say your [right] words.

Michael, will you row the boat (a)shore and dig a womb-shaped home

              with my arms

              for your arms

              for all the world worn arms

[until] the waters b(r)each our skin and skin these bones

              in their weight

              in the sand

              to begin again without blood in the print?