I walked along the 7-mile stretch
of road from the past to tomorrow.
My feet bare, smoothed by the beige
cosmetic dust that gathered imprint
toes, betrayed the fallen arches
of the magnificent youth of antiquity.
The dust, the road, my eyes dried,
grasping and blurred new memory.
Now I think back and hear the birds,
piercing blue sky undaunted.
The green spiraled in the breeze
to be breathed as a chlorophyll mist,
sunlight entering the body in every
willing sense, a thing I did not have.
They knew then,
etched in transparency,
in swirling solidity.
His feet joined mine in the dust;
his rustle annoying, penetrating,
permeating the cell of each step
I took upon the neutral earth.
Too late I looked up from the rock
soup cauldron I stirred with my
bile-blackened ladle. Too late,
he was upon the wind.
Yet within me
stirred a whisper;
blown into a voice,
hurled into a scream
as the world
imprinted my feet
and the sun
became my eyes.
