The numbers and letters mean nothing contrasted with the poverty
to live alone in the trailer and the border of all things,
personified by the silver lashings and Quick Tongue of the survivors
whose memory has been lost in the words of others, in another tongue
they live to tell the story of their fathers, but of my fathers?
the words are thin
spread too long against the grain of rocks and stones in a foreign land.
and the song they sung lost its echoes long before my feet touched the soil  
they worked until death

And again i see the face— the blond hair, the blue eyes (I think they’re eyes, eye think they’re blue)
and he stares stares stares and reminds
reminds of the life we had together
privileged and without despair
although i did shun him once
and every day
everyday shun
but forgives and forgives again because of what we do in secret:
that which no one may know but us

that my kindness in oneness masks the fear of what i face:
the faces, each one

each staring and behind them

there is something more, and it perceives all


take me back to the place of unwatered rock and the soil with a complicated past.