On Malice. Ken Babstock

      in the common sink, never lifting

      our gaze. I’ve a miner’s lamp, no fire.

      August 22, 1976, at 17:40. Khatanga.

      Don’t write to her. Perhaps she’ll love

      you separated more.

      ‘On the fifth, because I will be

      like your dress.’ Sometimes nobody

      gives a mind in their head

      the whole journey. We are not separated,

      we are beforehand. Catkins, then burrs.

      The lamp switched on prior to the journey

      by throwing a switch at the dome’s posterior.

      Grinding of teeth under the chestnut

      on Etna. It’s as though

      the summit invites a downgrade. Bark death.

      Krosnayorsk. Light rain.

      Eleven years of green bread still

      nobody, dear Lord, isn’t oneself,

      but thank you. Isn’t that right? Give them a picture

      of no bread, a mean flower more bush

      than the love in their heads, a picture

      of will separated from matter and head stuff.

      The green being flensed, combed out, rehashed –

      chesnut? beech? A severe

      grade, the cobbles and brick fragments boiling

      through topsoil. Night hikes up here

      and chases out shreds, Finnish wind. A fragile

      lantern tarp rags are whipping at.

      Kemerovo, August 28, 1978, at 15:30, altitude 3900 m.

      A girl said I should eat. Well, am I

      such a coward inside? Regarding winter,

      other children bit you, you were after interests.

      Inside, one knows everything, but

      how does the house see? It is

      totally unwindowed!

      The rustling in the approach

      as the wing lights climb. I distinguish

      that from those without reason

      so count old rivets, voltage, then fall back

      into shadow. How does she know

      everything to be unwindowed?

      Reported at 15:04, July 4, 1978, shortly before landing at Kolpashevo.

      You finish reading it. You cannot

      finish reading it. Ice caught

      in the can; later, the well. What

      shall I be worried about,

      the coward well and the ice does

      such a lot. They know nothing

      of cantilevered blown-out shells

      who feed their worry

      like veal barns. The dome’s aerial

      my lodestar and icon, the squirrel

      at dusk in the post-informational gloaming

      can never not finish reading it as song.

      July 9, 1979. 14:50, in clear conditions southeast of Kogalym.

      Your little lamp, for example,

      on the mountain sleeping all night.

      I have to think about it, or

      pull it out of my head. For example,

      a clown goes over my face

      with his claws. I have seen poorly

      for so long. Raking the overgrowth

      at the perimeter fence. Metal filing

      shelves lashed to the chain-link gaps.

      It kept the west out of the west’s mind.

      It kept the Lord out of your

      dress for a time.

      Incident in July, Magnitogorsk, at an unknown altitude.

      Because I am sleeping in love’s room

      now, the moment will have

      received a promise to wait.

      The mountain will finally be rid of the town.

      Wait a bit, and the mountain

      you have not seen goes over your face –

      The singing upgrades to ice

      crystals of Saturn’s rings raking

      the outer hull.

      Hello, thing. The geodesic temple and

      your dress in your mouth signalling to

      the western squirrel at the gap.

      Summer 1980, incident at 12:30, nearing 4000 m, Nizhneangarsk.