Bone of my bone, the phrase
escapes your mouth in a breath
that can’t be kept. The spirit
undoing itself. The moon rowing near,
then far in turns. At the center,
the earth burns. All the things we can’t see
are the things I want to forget.
But I saw your father’s face, his face
and not, undoing anything I could say.
Disfigured, shifted in surface appearance.
They wrapped his bent body
in a white cloth and topped him with a flag.
The moon and all the things we’ve conquered.
Who says the planet won’t drop
from an unseen hand tonight? Who says
your whisper won’t be your last?
A troubled man shouts outside our apartment
in an unknown tongue, the language of the lost.
All the breath everywhere, falling
out of mouths, suffering or not.
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