i pass my hand across the air
before your face. your eyes don’t move.
i speak of news, the word is bleak.
your eyes don’t shed a tear.

where could i live, if in your heart?
no room for me is there. your face
became my homelessness, in form:
His mother, blind to Christ.

i keep a memory of home,
of close and kindred mysteries.
the rosy books i used to read
would rise to meet my hungry eyes.

but meme versus the memory
is dream forgot, for anti-dream.
you cannot eat, we used to say,
the cream without the cake.

the bone without the nerve, of me,
is concrete sea and leaden air.
i read the news alone and lose
the wind out of my heart.

no matter, were we ever there.
why is this imprint fused with thought
if not to be remembered?
i pretend you aren’t a stranger.

and dreams arrive; they aren’t my own.
the one of drifting pieces, lost
at sea of darkening history.
i wait and work; a dream for mercy.

//