SOUL BUNDLE

With the Sunday Times this time came
the out-sized insert explains the archeology
of the soul, the binding of new bodies to old souls
something Jesuits tried with the Iroquois back when

and after they'd claimed mastery of the ipsimma verba of their own liturgical
language such that they would boldly tell the Indian they had made Latin
simpler.

Which was another lie.

And since I'm as yet unaware of evidence of the Oneidan altar boy,
an Ondogan Catechism, or a Mohawk talking
-stick that has some tender-heart's first
confession.,

I shake-out the Times bag
again after having done it once, already studied the insert,

and I'm positing a soul bundle ensnared in the bag,
compromised such by the route-man's packaging that

history, later, would never notice the damage done or the flop
-cakes calling themselves neighborly or righteous who intersect

our soul-laden lives lived nearby  -  the seven or eight of these
unattached

running into and over us
in the ordinary course of our Sunday morning 
through no fault of their own because they had never caught up with Corn Spirit or Earth

Mother or whatever...

...who ought to have untangled, unbundled the souls
off my drive-way, passed them on...

FRAGMENT

In her room, by the body's
clock, she wakes, rises

as the dead might rise,
bewildered,

calling out.


On glassy legs, she shimmers.

     Imagine feet unbound, bloodless.

     Imagine hands browned with old leaves
     who won't sweep off.

Listen as she calls out to him whose gone.

See her roam the winter closet, lost
among his coats, listen...

voices come
frail as china,

rooms grow thin, birds

come stealing in

pick at shard
and shell.