subtext

• •

Palimpsest


Soft layers scribed over

erasures, poorly scraped;

a velum saved for use

as if it were a silence,


independent of any thought,

original, and never spoken;

emerging fully formed, 

like Athena, into the world:


I am my own metaphor,

a translation stuttered

from a transparent other

which I will never know.


My words hover over words,

like mist over a graveyard.



(December 11, 2021)