What’s the Past Like?
Fragments of a water jar restored
with library paste, like cracks
filled and painted over to conceal
a disassembled vessel.
I said I couldn’t remember myself,
long ago, fastened long ago,
as a sensitive boy imagining life. But
now I recall the sound a gray bird
made to wake me from a crazed dream.
Like a scratch awl with its fluted wooden
handle chipping bark off an oak tree.
I wrote my name so passersby know
I existed, not who I am. I am a man
now, whatever. I go to town
alone. Time arrested me differently,
its strange sound took custody
of my desire to know myself. It sprained
my ligaments, swelled my back,
and still I ran through the sand dunes
like a wild mare, round-bellied,
and munched on the American beach
grass of forgetfulness. It’s hard
to remember that all horses were
once wild. I don’t do those things
that I did then. Secrets waver there like
a tail I cannot see. I grew up in a desert
until I was expelled to snowdrifts.
My lexicon, my only friend, was
words the dunes knew, but didn’t
say. Memories, primed by westerly
wind, are cold and strong. The wind
shapes the trees, its velocity greets
obliterated landscapes, dead reckoning.
The music of this loamy soil undulates,
a murmur snowballing, and if you can
balance as it trembles, you’ll remember
that first sip of gin, of cream, life
when it was dessert. Not an ice floe
begging you to collect its water
and convincing you of its warmth.