Taking pictures in the Evergreens, I get the call that your cousin’s been found hanging in the woods

“Heavy the woods with Self”
— James Merrill

I have a malady the color of mirror
light.
Disguised,
an
elegy

can live in one for a life
time,
conjured
at certain
calendar
moments.

23 & hanging from a tree, who was he
to me?
I last
saw him
sailing
like a
morning
loon—

he bought a rope from Home
Depot—
all
the directions
are on
Youtube
now.

The forest’s a palimpsest of
failed
children.
Observe
within

their bluest beginning:
night throbs
with
underground
tree-speak.
But of what?
Anchor points?
suspension?

My shirts are orderly. The funeral is
Wednesday.
His mother
moves
like rustled
brush.

I’m still
here
in late
October
light,
warmest week of autumn yet—

—pinecones
moth
the ground’s
nutrient
hum:
there are doors that take

longer
to open
than others.
I don’t
know
the names
of most
plants,
the names
for shifting
shades
of green
& brown,
these leaves,
veins & blades curled like sleep—this is not an elegy,

or at least
not elegiac:
the sun’s
telling me
a story;
it crowns
the stones
& polished
names
become
momentary
marquees.
I’m under
standing here in a field of golden syllables

& white-haired
expired
flowers:
(I do know
the names
but don’t
want to say)
the world
below
& the world
above
want me
without
direction.
Squirrels, deer, rabbits, crows abide here:

no
hunting
just
a long
breath
of end.
I’m giving
myself
permission
to forget
what
death is.
I’m feeling
whole
& warm
& lit
like
a moment.

Bill Neumire's second book of poems, #TheNewCrusades was a finalist for the Barrow Street Prize, and his first book, Estrus was a semi-finalist for the 42 Miles Press Award. His poems have appeared in Harvard Review Online, Los Angeles Review, West Branch and Beloit Poetry Journal, and his reviews of contemporary poetry regularly appear in Vallum and in Verdad.