Download - Inventions of the Dead
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Inventions of the DeadAuthor(s): Michael BurkardSource: The North American Review, Vol. 257, No. 4 (Winter, 1972), pp. 28-29Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117391 .
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MICHAEL BURKARD
INVENTIONS
OF THE DEAD
An older woman
describing sleeves
during a black rain
"He hung (even the roads
came to see him hung),
as if buried between two hands.
The roads were, the torches
were . . . indifferent. His arms,
well one arm was hugging his other arm. They were like
rugs. Even though his sleeves
were dark, he said his arms
included escape. His sleeves
were then two arms
that would explode. I imagine he thought the rooms
were bleeding, the light
was kneeling ..."
/winter 1972
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MICHAEL BURKARD
2
Back, where I lost
the forgetting, or when the soaked nets
are all hung
I wake the branches. Even tonight
they lift the mirror from
my hands,
they lift the shoes
from my throat.
They return from the window.
3
Handing the dead
back to the house, saying
House, I'm tired
of the dead. You take them.
Please them in your rooms.
Take them-the milked,
the forgotten. Give
them lamps (they will
always be asking for lamps),
give them skins. A window
when they ask for a door.
Feed them branches.
Please them with some moon.
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/WINTER 1972 29
This content downloaded from 185.2.32.141 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:48:22 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions