Whose ways am I living out

in my ceremonially deprived

existence?

I scan the room for a big brother’s hoodied slouch
or the hard-faced stare of an older sister
with pouting fuchsia lips and bleached-taffy hair.

But it’s just us.

How small hairs pricked at the nape of my neck
when the phone rang. How at the cyanamide plant
the earth roared as the first blast flung
raw flesh, rag, and bone—

He speaks in Italian—keen, wheeling words
she tenders in echo. Each syllable dwindles
October’s losses, mesmerizes as her English cannot,
and she grins when he casts the remembered spell,
chants, plucks a quarter from behind her ear

The crust, quiet and tender, but I finally hear the breaking this
creates. So much of what happens

is routine. The raven crackles and shrieks because
it imagines a hole in the nest.