It's the shadow I avoid, or as my mother
would whipser : l'ombre.
Shadows are wetting stages where we go to dry off,
dark spaces beneath and below our own light.
Secrets. Comforting in a friend kind of manner,
childlike, diminished toward mid-afternoon.
Porch spots to curl up inside.
When we can no longer stand, or run.
Before life, it was all there was.
Small thumbs inside small thumbs.
But there must be purpose to their fragments
that travel with us.
I'll invite them all into my life as guests,
or simply keep them on the windowsill.
Look, another beginning outside these bright
rooms of rain. Doors open and close
like a robin's breast. I never want to be
satisfied, or walk so straight
I miss the last season's face.
I never want to miss
the sound I don't recognize. It deafens,
like a chant, like a soft cloth that stays
and stays.
