I don’t like the date, the remembering,
the insistent recounting of the history
of a past disaster, remembering intended
as restoring, but not that, not actually
reconsideration or real consideration,
rather recital of what we didn’t truly
know or feel but think we should have.

Across the street, my neighbor goes
indoors. Where is the couple with bike
and backpack, where are the dogs I
know, their walkers? Everyone is lying
low, bowing in fear and obeisance.
A gull, a plane: sound. This morning I
am not here, I am not elsewhere.

My body’s a rag, a bone, a scream,
muffled. I am the torn leaf, cancelled
trip, transaction that has been voided.
The day is chill, gray, fogged, pale.
Time itself is foreshortened. I fail,
falter, fall short. Lament, castigate
myself, others. This is a story of loss

– but whose? Silence resumes,
stillness. Now the wind picks up,
becomes breeze, shaking branches,
leaves, the way the date, the day,
its reverberations, has shaken me.