we cannot think back
before we could talk
we didn't know what to call
anything we saw
this morning
the light by which I recall
you sitting across the breakfast table smiling
lying on a couch petting the dog
is simply older than can be known
before it I am still as an infant
to the whole of the universe
in which there is no shadow or sundial
no aurora or gloaming
no picture or sound or concurrence
I do not dare ask
such fierce radiance
should the air I inhale now
somehow have
anticipated me
then how could any exhalation be
expected to remember
