I walked through a different door;
and then, in epiphany, I sensed
I was lost. The patterns I moved
within were lifted, and I knew
nothing as familiar as a home.
As in those moments when tense
in a dream, you become aware
you are in a dream, and relax
back into sleep’s narrative,
I relaxed into the idea of being
lost in my life. Except I was
someone else, and I knew I was
someone else, with a remnant
of me, redundant and superfluous;
but not enough to cohere
into a whole able to control
what was said and heard.
So, I stood still, one step inside,
beside myself, who was not myself,
another aspect of a waning moon.
Desperately, I gathered the traces:
the moonlight flickering the snow
clinging to the forest floor,
bits of conversation along with
the meaning I longed to give it;
all to patch together a pretense
of a memory never quite there.
(February 4, 2016)
subtext 