Robert Cording

Inside, late afternoon sun passingthrough the window, I followa circle of light that darts on the ceilingwhen I move my arm, my watch’s glassits origin. When I hold my arm still,my dead son comes to light,as if each one of my days still livesat a distance, but a distancethat can be traveled at the speed …

I come from a line of people intimate with the dead, my mother taking my hand when I was a boy and placing it on the face of my dead great-grandmother, first her forehead, then her cheeks. My mother said my body would keep the touch of her body. I repeated what she had taught …