a year ago today

disconnect

take
me to a place where I can hear the wind
in dimmed lights and through beaded curtains
pushed apart by the breeze of my
movement. I'll buy a quill and pad and ink
from the cluttered quiet Arab shop on
the street down from us. The smell of musk and
sound of jovial children overpower me.

to
and fro I walk on that narrow street
from the first time. Watching flowers
bud wilt die bud
and the tree branches being undressed, reaching out to
me.

change
is inevitable, I know. Walk over unpacked escaped mud
being pushed to a side on that
same first street. Strands of your hair
flitting in my mind. Mine in the wind. The
street is hollow, echoes not my voice, my thoughts.
repeats repeats repeats – it never stops

rain
patters onto the dusted sidewalks – I
want to step under it, to protect just one spot
of this street – but rain trickles into the crevices
and removes every memory of you.
and the wind steals my echoed thoughts, holds them
to her bosom. Presses them into these lines.
it's a wind that follows me into my dreams.

I will lead you down this garden path
and abandon you.