There is a fastness
inside every fastness.
Something that changes
and doesn’t change.
Pages creased by hands
that turn them.
Doorbells rung and gone silent.
I would dare you
to live again and come back.
I am confounded.
I never knew
how beauty walked down the street
and said hello.
How the rain exhausted itself
making everything shine.
How youth was impervious to rust.
How nothing excused its legs
or said, I’m tired.
And then
something knocking at the door.
The wind?
The creak of cold?
Or a voice shouting,
there’s a parade out here!
Come and see!
The band you heard at birth,
waking you up forever.