“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)