“a small part of the pantomime”
Wallace Stevens
When you gesture as you walk
alone talking to yourself
dismissive and emphatic;
or when you catch yourself
thinking someone waved to you,
but you were just in the way;
or when you sweep up all
the shards of memory which remain,
and blood slips from your fingers
in small calligraphic swaths.
(February 20, 2022)
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