Everything we write about ourselves
is a sacred text—
a living, breathing document.
A record of who we are
at a fixed moment—
when we are at our most beautiful.
Virginia Woolf said, "When you are silent,
you are beautiful."
Then, what of the dead?
Those whose cries register
but to keener ears,
whose ghostly demarcations
are traced by analytical eyes.
Is your document as tangible as mine?
Then, read from verse one
and tell me
what is it you see
when you are fixed.
When time is moving through you,
and space pushing up against you
what do you see?
I see us driving off the gravel shoulder
and into the golden flecked woods.
I feel the cold toe of my loafer
against my heel as I pry off my shoes,
and the draft from the car window
against my bare lower back.
I hear the crimson bubbles of the brook
swirling into a shallow gyre.
I hear our laughter caught in the stream,
as we splash around knee-deep in the water.
I taste the salt from the sandbar on my lips.
I am all of these things,
when I am fixed.
I see all with my eyes closed,
lips pursed,
hands clasped on my chest,
ears folded.
I am a living, breathing document.
