Three Thoughts After Crossing Nameless Creek

1.

The student who told you
her mother didn’t name her for days.
For more than a week, everyone
called her Baby.

2.

Your daughter, who now sees
the labeled world: For sale. Open. Stop.
Even Hell Is Real. It’s love/
hate, reading being automatic.
Seeing a thing and
—immediately, without consent—
knowing it.

3.

Once, as a child, you tried to imagine
nothing—tried like hell to empty
your mind’s shameful hoard.
You stayed awake for days.
But each time you had it,
you labeled it—nothing—
and that was something,
and you had to start again.