perhaps, after your long night of despair
you woke to a fog, into which
your brain leaked.
or perhaps
you speak different tongues
in different rooms
and your last territory
is your bedroom.

perhaps your poetry
negates the crime
of having loved.

too depressed to talk
too ashamed to write
perhaps you are hiccuping at summer.

perhaps at dusk you are always
driving down the wrong streets,
cursing yourself;
and your life, full of wrong words,
is an unpublishable memoir.

Confucius said:  at thirty, a man stands.
at thirty, you had already left your life.

Confucius said : at forty, a man is no longer puzzled.
at forty you trembled at the sound of a love song,
guilt made you give up your past.
a wounded man
wants nothing but peace.

you learned from history that gazing at plums
can quench your thirst,
learned to adjust the seasons
with the wind, until
shadows lay on the ground,
clouds poured into your mouth,
moonlight meant forgetting,
a breeze meant kindness.
the sounds
outside your window
meant
history goes on
without you.

small is beautiful. small is clean. small is safe.
small like an egg, like a button, even smaller,

preserved like
a moth in amber.