I wonder what you were like,
what you did before I was born.
Did you speak, laugh, cry?
After I was wrapped in a blanket,
I came home
but you didn’t.
You sent your soul
in another direction and you
came hollow, indifferent.
What were you afraid of?
What was it?
While I was growing,
you practiced invisibility daily,
willed yourself to become
transparent,
to disintegrate,
to turn into vapor.
When I reached out,
my hand went through you.
You didn’t come home
and you continually
left without me--
the boat was ready,
you set sail that night,
but when I asked,
“If I hurry and pack,
can I come with you?”,
you were overcome with
an inexplicable
urgency
to leave
then.
You mastered the maddening art of
invisibility; prepared to take that final step,
you became an
empty space,
a void.
Desperate, eternal
companions:
my need,
your escape.
©JEF 1992—2010
1939--2001
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