I am in the cold museum
_____of your thinking—

now think me a sepia
_____thought. Tag

and title me, “loved one”:
_____lay a label on

my fistful of hair. There is
_____always the plastic hard

water-curtain. The stage light,
_____bugs teeming

under glass. This is nothing

like being afraid. It’s carrying
_____your leather satchel

into eternity I dislike—it’s
_____the predictable

marsh extending me this blank
_____look. It’s the painting

of the cape that never
_____comes. And here I am,

kneeling, threading my hook.
_____A sea bass opens his mouth

in a silent river, a bottom lip
_____collecting another, then

another white piece of dust.

Annah Browning