1.
Years have passed. She still
does not
call. Rarely will she
call back.
Do things ever feel like they should be different
from what they are?
On occasion.
2.
I used to walk around composing
wishes.
3.
I considered
adjusting
my expectations, obsessions.
At least once before.
4.
Confusing
a smaller peak for the pinnacle, I had stopped climbing
and sat down to eat. Long ago.
Wiping away the perspiration.
5.
The spill: each time
I soak it up
gingerly
without fixing the leak.
6.
Sometimes my dead grandmother's
language
comes to me
in dreams, undecipherable.
7.
Would it have been that terrible
to have known her?
Or would that woman have given
me away, too?
Nieuwpoort, August 16, 1955, 2023
Acrylic and photograph on wood