from which dust blew into the village,

like locusts chasing invisible tissues

of plants; It was a summer day, air

sunk its teeth into his face which turned

red, then swarthy, like fertile soil,

like fertile soil we took for granted

at each harvest season.

I clung to the door and watched a rainbow

burnt onto the water curtain at his sprinkler

as the sun swam past our roof.

I was eager to grow up, to be like him,

to conjure seven colors with bare hands;

I didn’t know there were things better

to stay in time, un-policed by memory.

But I’m not a hierophant to the past,

I can’t look into my face and imagine

the lost, fierce as love but heavier,

registered in every cell of my body,

like this world receding into winter,

leaving a handful of warmth on my skin.