There is only morning     it shimmers
and shifts into bodies     into beasts
into the man sleeping     now waking     in the damp grass
a jar of ashes at his side     and the bulls still running loose     though tired
inside his skull     they ram here and there against its walls
as last night’s star-smeared sky     spreads clean now     and flat over him
jar in hand     he walks toward the spring creek
its water draws a cold thrill through the meadow
and the bulls groan dark     from their anvil heads
as he wades knee-deep into the current
he remembers the ashes back into his sister     when she told him
loss     is no more one thing than the sky is one thing
the pasture behind her eyes     lay wide and empty
and looked like a place he could sleep
he tips the jar and lets the ash fall into the stream     and the cold
rolls over in its bed     over     over
until she’s neither ash     nor water
the stars the stars the bulls low behind his eyes
he forgets about the stream     and the meadow
and nothing could be so empty     as the jar in his hands