--
Trying to turn myself into syllables
and searching in their ripples the wavering images
of father, mother and you, my brother,
have become lately a sad, forlorn pursuit.
--
In my notes, which I boastfully call poems,
I have never written about you, mother,
for I didn’t want to begrime you
with myself, with my words, with any words.
--
When you cried you hid your face from me, father,
and since then I saw you only as a hand masking a face
and now I know that you have confined yourselves
to being just the hand, your face having withered behind it.
--
In your dead face I saw nothing, brother,
not even the calm Death was supposed to gift you,
maybe you were too young to know about calm
maybe you were too young to feel your own death.
