Nica Giromini

Tact

I’d rather not walk
through the garden again
in summer when
the marsh is being
burned. Is burnt up.

That place is nothing.
Nothing was seen.
The water was all older
and under entirely.
Up out of its details—

where, were it wet, an animal
might like to get stuck—
came the need to name
what’s done still, and done to.

I say the names of things
I’ve touched. I like to.
To walk again like that.
More marsh, and Massachusetts
now a neck. When is one
thing equal to another:

which is isn’t metaphor.
Optimal or actual, exact
loaned words. Carrara moving
across the glass sea intact.
I’ve been lying too.
What did you need to tell me?

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