Assembly

You are a garden
snake families leave
out and I the rattle
one mine called in
about (a taped bin
to the mountains,

though we lived
on the edge of one),
by which you know
I mean my people
bow and yours curse.
Now that we have

been through woods
and on the winter
beaches; that I have
given up the oval logic
of the archive and you
your cigarettes; that we

have abandoned altars,
trees, and books and
needled through each
other’s limbs and
nightmares, I never
would call you my

love, to keep you
subject, concrete
noun, person, just
as you are not your
name. I have stolen
two kinds of gowns

and you have listed
all the limit cases, so
summers we go back
to peninsular places
together, places saved
from islandness by

sea, and we admit
invention is not
a sound description
of language: found,
maybe, or sorted—
culled, torn, snaked.