History repeats like silence after automatic rounds.
Only minutes ago, you had first-rain-colored eyes;
just yesterday sun, like dust, settled on your hair.
Flashing bay hurricanes made landfall loud and gentle.
One upon a time we were young and restless,
caught in a quadrille, stiff-armed and measured,
bodies in the way of bodies, not quite a dance,
emotions tamped down like hard graveyard clay.
Only last week, we were building, brick by bracken,
ruins made of paste and bulging bags of crystal dust,
grinding days down to sand with mortar and pestle.
We built a house all cellar, pushed a handcart all wheels.
Not so long ago my hair was brown, skin unlined;
my eyes were blazing in the strong wind, clear and deep.
Your hands were powerful and certain, arms open,
the back of your neck sweet milk and clean new snow.
The truth about souls is that they can be broken, ground
into clods of brown dirt, mixed with water, soft magic
to build a golem with no body, no eyes, no ears,
speaking in tongues long forgotten, mostly unknown.
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