Other's Steps

.
Your mouth has become this flower
and the wind
on which my shadow breathes.

I sit, always in the empty
room of your illegible script,
where each shelf erodes
beneath the buzz-blur of wings,
where I can leave
my black pen on the floor
knowing a dragonfly is born
in the cellophane mud
singing the Kamogawa.

Memory is a hand-sized stone.
The space between our distances,
our steps along each other's steps.

Enough,
arrange the petals
and tune the breeze, speaking
the voice at the ear.

I place my hand here
for you, trusting you will
never pass this flower again.



by jerry gordon