ALT The Presence in Absence Poetry is not made of words. I can say it’s January when it’s August. I can say, “The scent of wisteria on the second floor of my grandmother’s house with the door open onto the porch in Petaluma,” while I’m living an hour’s drive from the Mexican border town of Ojinaga. It is possible to be with someone who is gone. Like the silence which continues here in the desert while the night train passes through Marfa louder and louder, like the dogs whining and barking after the train is gone.