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The distance between memory and I isnot length but texture,
a surface I keep mistaking for skin,
until it folds, turning out to be a book that never belonged to me.
Time arrives in fragments—
sometimes it sprints ahead,
sometimes it collapses.
A minute, when I am waiting, feelscarnivorous.
An hour, when I am lost, has noteeth at all.
Once, I thought I saw the shadow ofSaturn’s rings in a puddle,
but it was only the ripple of my ownhesitation.
Once, I counted backwards from tenand arrived in a century
that hadn’t happened yet.
The distance between memory and I
is a theater with no curtain call,
where the actors refuse to bow,
just the silent movement of clocks
trapped in glass,
insisting they are telling me thetruth.