Salvage

I find certain facts more difficult 

than others, how “minus” seems more 

precise than “plus” or the balanced equations

I can’t understand without seeing or

imagining, imagining 

signs, which I always forget aren’t marks, 

forget their names or, beginning to write, 

forget how each poem once looked 

like the final & only poem 

I could ever write, like the former

cherished face behind a veil. When I recall

the face alone, patterns or the sea then 

rise up and hide it. As though that part 

of me perished, had to be born

again before returning, but 

I couldn’t return. Night,

when caused to paint,

I like to think the images 

behave like language, behave 

the same, are entangled, but 

I know this is almost never the case.

It was like exiting water, nearing a cliff

from below. The down-sloping wind. I watched 

that beauty walk out of my life. A flash 

of red climbed the stair & was gone.