Like a good bird flying, he would
say when I asked how his day went.
Fingering the holes in his belt with his right,
he’d smooth his left hand over
his baldness. Wars and craftsmanship
had marked his hands—little stains and lines
crocheted across the creases time had slowly
grown. I wonder where in his eyes he kept
the bodies he had seen. Was it somewhere
different than the gold he’d honed? Somehow,
when we talked at length, the light was always leaving.
Someone was calling dinner or for us to come
in for the night and he would say, Jota A, it seems
we are wanted elsewhere. That always sounded
nice, like some distant longing could find
purchase around our waists and reel us in. But on the face
of it, these interruptions leave me the holes I show
you now. I do not know the stories whole. I do not
know where exactly the scars came from. I do not know
what good bird carried that news and where. I run
my hand over my own baldness. I am talking to no
one here but the shadow of myself. It wonders nothing.
