they become a trail of evidence
leading forward to you,
leading back
along the breath of a hand,
the rim of a heartbeat
the break of a cut,
the edge of a fingernail
to a warm presence
billowing in your blood
like black curtains,
a heavy reluctance,
rubbing against your bones
like shadow branches
of the moon.
Remember the old woman
on that summer dock?
I am in the glint of broken shells.
Remember the dog
chasing down horses on that dirt road?
I am among the hot stones
spat out like bullets from those tires.
Remember the boy
thin as a birch
driving his mountain bike neck deep, into a swamp river?
I am beneath the green weeds dangling from
his glasses
held by masking tape.
Remember me now?
I am a god standing
somewhere in a rush of leaves
and as you gather them
these words,
know that
I am somewhere
in their fragments.
They are clutched around me
like a handful of shells
held close to you, now,
like the remembering of
of muscles, after a heavy load,
the memory of touch upon skin:
solidifying forever
into an instant
lasting as long
as the heartbeat
the brief hush
when all these pieces freeze
into a single moment,
and you realize
as clearly as the silence
around us,
that everything I am
has already happened
a million times
in a million different ways
and will never happen
this way
again.
2002 (c) Rocco de Giacomo
