I was asleep while you were dying.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow
I make between my slumber and my waking,

the Erebus I keep you in, still trying
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow,
but in dreams you live. So I try taking

you back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning,
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
Again and again, this constant forsaking.

*

Again and again, this constant forsaking:
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
You back into morning, sleep-heavy, turning.

But in dreams you live. So I try taking,
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow.
The Erebus I keep you in -- still, trying --

I make between my slumber and my waking.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hallow.
I was asleep while you were dying.

In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi;
they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi.

They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose name
begins with a sound like sin, the sound of wrong -- mis in Mississippi.

A year later they moved to Canada, followed a route the same
as slaves, the train slicing the white glaze of winter, leaving Mississippi.

Faulkner's Joe Christmas was born in winter, like Jesus, given him name
for the day he was left at the orphanage, his race unknown in Mississippi.

My father was reading War and Peace when he gave me my name.
I was born near Easter, in 1966, in Mississippi.

When I turned 33 my father said, It's your Jesus year -- you're the same
age he was when he died. It was spring, the hills green in Mississippi.

I know more than Joe Christmas did. Natasha is a Russian name --
though I'm not; it means Christmas child, even in Mississippi.

What's left is footage: the hours before
          Camille, 1969 -- hurricane
                    parties, palm trees leaning

in the wind,
          fronds blown back,

a woman's hair. Then after:
          the vacant lots,
          boats washed ashore, a swamp

where graves has been. I recall

how we huddled all night in our small house,
          moving between rooms,
                    emptying pots filled with rain.

The next day, our house --
          on its cinderblocks -- seemed to float

          in the flooded yard: no foundation

beneath us, nothing I could see
                    tying us                     to the land.
                    In the water, our reflection
                                                    trembled,

disappeared
when I bent to touch it.