Each day I think this will be the lastwarbler. With the seasons confused,these small birds stay longer and longerto starve. Wrapped in the long cordof its vine, I eat a fox grape to darkenmy mouth. An itinerant word flees,a bracelet of language fastenedto the lone deer the neighbor shotand quartered. Like a white-footed mouseburrowing beneath snow, the stone in my sister'sbody opens to infection. The doctor diagnosesthe shadow and buries it undergroundto hold the poison.                                                        The geologist also seekswhat's imprisoned. All around us pump jacksand the sounds of new wells being drilled.The derrickman ignores what happenswhen fossils are dislodged and scattered.Where the mountain was cut to the groundthere's nothing to hold back the flood.The last year of his life my father struggledto breathe. I missed the hour of his deathand woke to blood sopping the pillow.I pull on my boots before dawn. The elevatorcage clanks as it descends the shaft. Withoutmuch light, its impossible to seewhere the sea used to be.