Fields of rippling wheat, the mint and dill, the dust, the heat,
Cover the thousand faces dim and damp rolling down the street;
this veil of once before I cannot shake. A better-when in just one face,
One mouth, the just-so angle of a jaw can catch me from a crowd
And pull the cement beneath my feet neatly through the shroud
Time’s lain across my eyes. Here you stand, here in this far-off place,
So near to me, I need only reach to touch the little part
You’ve left today to mock my sense; your smile rests on a stranger’s lips.
Yesterday, I tried to follow your ears—yours, I swear, to the downy tips—
Hoping on the train they’d recognize the beat of a familiar heart
And stop to reminisce a while about when I knew you whole.
Once a week could be spent entire in awe of the way you walked,
And days passed, mimicking with delight your mouth as you talked.
Then, in less than a quarter hour, you split my world from pole to pole,
and, since I stood in one piece somehow, you simply tore yourself apart.
The best fragments of you now wander the earth for the ruin of my soul.
Soon I’ll gather them all again, patch from memory each tear and hole,
And hold you completely as before, for just a moment, by this art.
The world will cease to shadow one past and now can have its start.

09/25/2009

Posted on 09/26/2009
Copyright © 2025 Laurie Duncan