Instructions for Dematerializing

,

.

1

Feet Locked in Stocks

but your departed

wife has been cautiously levitating

nested escapeboxes out

from each other, one at a time: sleight of

matryoshka hand

: : :

You became the dreamt

trapeze husband, the properly applied

force of a shoestring. O handcuffed

secret, our unrevealer, how many locks

you’ve left for us to pop

open to find

2

Suspended in Midair from Ankles

the mind refuses to exhume

your illusion, containers of glass-

and-steel: the body lifted

right out of the body; earth

left open as an eye

socket after

the coffin is pulled

: : :

Tell us—will your bones

be laced, lined

with arsenic and the old

deep-believings of séanced

revenge? will we uncover fistfuls

of sleeping-dirt, the incessant

chill of wanting left

wanting—answers

within answers within

3

Lowered into Tank Overflowing

with water your wife wrote

letters, dissolved: Dear

Ehrich, Dear Prince of Air,

Master of Cards, Dear Manacled

: undid each one until dis-

apparition, until she reached

right through the din of tricks,

of history, of death, into dear de-

materialized, dear my lovely

who-do-I-need

but you