Intimate Stranger

THE ASHES AND US

it is the tree coolness by day

like a robe of grace

draped around the trunk

it is the fire by night

burning holes in the dark

it is where sun and moon perish

and the answerableness

of identity

is weighed slaked shifted

to all evil things worded away

not-us is the fulcrum of rancor

in squatting together for solace

memory is leisurely fumbled

folded fashioned

measure for measure

and fitted to words

do we know who we are

one by one

for you and one

for me the blood and the clay

the rememberer’s song

but when the tree is chopped down

so that sun burns a stain in the eye

and fire goes to ashes

to a scorched blot of absence

we are strewn to four winds

do I not know who I am

wandering through the flame-fed day

and night’s shivering articulations

looking for you as if for mirror