Special Problems in Vocabulary

There is no single particular noun

for the way a friendship,

stretched over time, grows thin,

then one day snaps with a popping sound.

No verb for accidentally

breaking a thing

while trying to get it open

—a marriage, for example.

No particular phrase for

losing a book

in the middle of reading it,

and therefore never learning the end.

There is no expression, in English, at least,

for avoiding the sight

of your own body in the mirror,

for disliking the touch

of the afternoon sun,

for walking into the flatlands and dust

that stretch out before you

after your adventures are done.

No adjective for gradually speaking less and less,

because you have stopped being able

to say the one thing that would

break your life loose from its grip.

Certainly no name that one can imagine

for the aspen tree outside the kitchen window,

in spade-shaped leaves

spinning on their stems,

working themselves into

a pale-green, vegetable blur.

No word for waking up one morning

and looking around,

because the mysterious spirit

that drives all things

seems to have returned,

and is on your side again.

Source: Application for Release from the Dream (Graywolf Press, 2015)