Erasure

By now, I thought
I would barely remember you;
I would have been long gone,
migrated away like the birds
or maybe the butterflies, light
glinting off their fluttering wings.

But who thinks of these things?

Who thinks their wings
will be broken or that time
will pour through their
fingertips like sand
from an old hourglass?

A man on the street chants
love songs from Solomons.
The walls of my barren house 
collapse inward, like a burial ground,
like the first burial ground
of the first woman ever.

I walk backwards.
Out of my daisy-bound
wedding hat, out
of that day I first met you,
out of my body into
limitless time.

I erase you. I am free


Pris Campbell
©2006


Photograph: Graphic by Pris Campbell