In the beginning was our stuff, like a vast empty yard

where grass-seed was scattered, and at first  
shards, bare shoots, patches here and there,

until a great lawn of things everywhere sprang up  
and covered the ground and the deep.

Our trash is soaked with us. Our boats 
skrim through the plastic souls we shudder.

I want to tear up the house from its foundation 
and empty it, want our stuff to get lost like the names

of characters in almost every book I’ve read 
and almost every single student I’ve ever taught

(it’s magical how settings remain, like the white 
wrought iron bed, your ideal chair, its thousands

of particulars: Eames, caneback, wicker, a nickel 
plated lowrise that bears the impression

of a tall man sitting in it with his legs crossed). 
They rise up and sink, drift by the boat like scores.

Even love has multiplied beyond our ability  
to count. The coasts flood first, then the seasons

were unmoored (nothing gold can stay). Now the flash,  
currents knocking us off our feet. We cling

to tree branches, reach out for fingerholds.  
And this sweeping away, we’ve longed for it

to tell the truth, to finally be clean.