Sharp edges have gotten my number, certainly, my blood type, reflex rate (hyporeflexia) and charted my pathways. They know my recipes requiring knives or graters and linger in anticipation. They fight for primacy on my workbench. I expect them there; see them lurking. They can’t hide and are really pissed! I cherish my scars; each Ouch! a cue, a precious possibility of life to come.
My Shadow knows or does he? He does not always mimic me; his job supposedly. I notice, at times he hides out of the light. What's he doing there; giggling, dozing or plotting an insurrection? At other times, walking with me, his movements go errant. A test? More likely, he's making fun of me! Look at him! A slight hunched over, a tiny stagger in his mimicking steps! He's playing Elderly! He's not funny!
This book, this Book of Secrets, just revealed to me,
lay with the others; hidden, dust stifled, antiquated,
irrelevant, too long, too…piled in the “not now” bin.
Thumbing through; “Crap! I knew all this!” I smirked,
but read another line, then more. Was I to truly believe
that bracing you against a fall at the bathroom mirror
as you wiped matter from your eyes, lamenting, what
you perceive, as the taint of time upon your face, and
your burst of anger at your confused thoughts, and
making one of my silly, hopefully calming, jokes
and kissing your matted-hair head, eliciting a smile,
a purr, almost, was my purpose, my nirvana? Maybe.
Crap! What’s your name? I know your face, your touch;
Remembered colors, tones and patterns tease!
It’s only a word, an ordering, our farce of supremacy.
Yes! you grew behind our house….the southern wall
Against sun-bleached boards….gray and mute;
Towering stylized suns in yellows, browns and greens
Relentlessly tracking your maker east to west.
Even if I could say your man-given name would…
you acknowledge me; curtsy or sing or curse?
Your name….a memory lost. Is it a cleansing,
Allowing a simple bliss in being and yellows,
Without the words to anguish or sadden?
Belated Words 