The teacher who said—
never begin
a poem with
"I remember"—
must have been
exaggerating;
since now, all you can recall,
having ran
rings around the world
and understood nothing
as profoundly as ever,
is waiting
for the day's shadows to come
and completely cover
your losses.
You were desperate
to record
the exact syncopations
of bricks and flowers,
sidewalks and foliage,
rising and falling,
almost like a language
in which someone had been
trying to pronounce your name correctly.
In that moment,
you only lived
and breathed to preserve,
so that another
might understand in the future,
how, just before
the evening storm,
those incessant bird calls
sounded
all the sweeter
for having nothing whatever
to do with you
or your urges.