he builds a metronome heart out of a pocket watch discarded along the edge of etawa—or perhaps it was lost. these words are not his words: they are endwise words. settler words for settler objects, settler waste, settler sentiments. he is surrounded by glimmers of their refuse: broken objects that no longer serve a purpose, mementos of memories forgotten, cadavers they no longer wish to understand.
winding the watch-heart, he kneels by a hawk with a hole in its breast. bloody beaked, white milk eyes drying in the high noon sun, she sings to him—low and quiet, but still she sings her decaying threnody.
my heart is no longer, she