And the last piece of this sequence is called "Envoi,"
and it had an epigraph, which is actually true.
In 1992 somebody said, "You will die on a boat from Yalta
to Odessa."
Whatever that means, so here's an "Envoi."
"What ties me to this earth?
In Massachusetts, the birds force themselves into my lines.
The sea repeats itself, repeats, repeats.
I bless the boat from Yalta to Odessa,
and bless each passenger, his bones, his genitals,
bless the sky inside his body, the sky my medicine,
the sky my country.
I bless the continent of gulls, the argument of their order.
The wind, my master insists on the joy of poplars, swallows.
Bless one woman's brows, her lips, and their salt,
bless the roundness of her shoulder.
Her face, a lantern by which I live my life.
You can find us, Lord.
She's a woman dancing with her eyes closed,
and I'm a man arguing with this woman among nightstands
and tables and chairs.
Lord, give us what you have already given."