After all
that,
the thing
you
don’t know
now
are the
instructions
for forgetting,
which you think
must
be
in a form
resembling
braille,
or
perhaps
the scrap
of her
brief
query
made
to a friend,
just before
she
erased
the thing
written,
what
to do
with
you?
No, you don’t know
how
silence can
take
up
all
these
lines,
then, in
a manner of speaking,
allow the words
all at once,
to come
to you,
as if only
a
single
word,
that it is in
the
way
you must
trace the
letters
back
out to
the north lakes,
sense ice beneath
’til it’s thin
as air,
keep breathing
all of it
in,
deep as it
will take you
until
the ice
is out.