Under layers of glaciers it lies: this ancient thing that will come for me, once woken from its frozen slumber. It knows the foreordained sign, it feels its sharpness thawing, it feels an old need for holes. The tug at the base of my neck, the heavy footfall on the stair after I shut the light, the shape at the foot of my bed: a colt, a hawk, a hare, a stag, a dog that walks upright. But there will be no screaming hordes, no monster movie stampede. We turn with slack jaws to the north, we see the ice buckle, rise, we see the hard gray breaching, we see those long arms reach for holes. With tendrils, with teeth, with talons, with beaks, oh so lovely you reaching for me. And when your jaws close then I'll know that I am home.

Down this hall: a hole. Some dumb door through deep time that just leads to an attic of souls. A sucking airlock. A banging gate. Heaven is scratched and skipping like a record, forever, a record you hate. So, don't wait for me. Down this hole: a hull. Galley slaves haul on oars 'cross an endless gulf. H-E-A-V-E H-E-A-V-E H-E-A-V-E. Heaven's an ice bubble trapped in a glacier. Heaven's a dime standing on edge forever. Heaven's a clock flashing 12:00 'til the sun dies. A tar pit. An amberized fly. So, don't wait for me.

This floor seems to know the score. It waited, solid, for my crumpling form. It kept itself cold for my febrile warmth. It saw the holes in my plan to stand some more. Struggle, tilebound, on my way to heaven's icebox, humming at the tunnel's end. I can see my bed from here— down this dim hall— so long abandoned. It waits and pines for me to come near, over dark seas, lose all companions. Struggle, tilting, on my way to heaven's floorboards, dusty now from long neglect.

When you first moved here you felt like a river, flowing free. Now it's December, and you're reminded that rivers freeze. The early twilights that turn your days to useless stubs, axe handle blisters that turn your hands to stupid clubs. The snow accretes so quickly it buries you just where you stand. Sometimes it seems the Holocene never began. But there's blue light that pools on the floor of the canyon— a solar flare, a rolling cloud, a following moon, a signal mirror flashing the secret name found in an anagram of an anagram of Thorodin Mountain. The bullshit dreams that young men feel they must indulge: cheap pastoralia, the auteur theory, courtly love. Goddamn these rats, goddamn this cold, goddamn this wind. You stuff the cracks with steel wool, they still get in. By February life here will be untenable, but we should stay for twenty years just to be sure. Of the blue light that pools on the floor of the canyon... Nothing could be more natural than that these things would be those other things that they were not. Nothing could be more natural. Nothing could be more untrue or less unfraught. And you must always remember these three simple rules: it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. The Russian olives along the creek will choke you out. Their sickly scent, which you once loved, will coat your mouth. You won't have time before you sleep to shout "I came back for this. I came back." For the blue light that pools on the floor of the canyon...

The veil of the sky flutters uselessly: it hides only air, then thinner air, then no air. And the sentinel moon drifts aimlessly: it guards only emptiness. It guards only emptiness. Between this world and the upper world— if there were an upper world— there could be no passage. I saw you standing in the dark, with slackened face and limp-hung arms. Don't tell me you saw it. Don't tell me it's waiting. Don't tell me of incalling, infolding, inbreaking. In this upstairs room, the membrane seems so thin. Or not even thin, but to exist in the first place. The motionless clock, the greasy light, the broken plates, the piles of clothes, are either signs of a passing age or heralds of a coming one. When I woke up alone, I felt such an awful relief, and I rushed down the stairs to feel the night on my skin. And saw you running through the street, the pavement clawing your bare feet. The veil of the sky lifts pointlessly: the knock at the door, the ringing phone, with no one there. But in the hiss of the empty line, you discern a distant song. The song is about itself. If there is no passage, if there is no upper world, then this is the upper world, then this is the passage. I saw you sleeping in the field, the peaceable beasts stretched at your heels. Now tell me you saw it. Now tell me it’s waiting. I saw you see it. I saw you see it all.