What a strange thing
not to know who you are,
find a cemetery full of bones.
An illusion to say the universe remembers.
How it keeps track of faces and hearts.
Oh, if a cataclysm found me,
what would be left?
How much was love worth?
Who could hear me cry without lips?
Touch them without fingers?
I read a sad letter this morning
how my brother died in battle.
Instantly.
To my mother who died in grief, slowly.
To me who never heard his voice again
since I was a child.
And yesterday when it closed,
why I said a prayer
without one true church to hear me,
and found no fault with whatever is,
giving praise innocently
to what is and is not,
without knowing what I am
or should be.