Yesterday
is only the sleep
that lingers
into day
the ruined city
in the eye of the hurricane
to forget the wish you made
last night
the tear
that blew
from who you really are
what sense is there
in the things that never came
to be
the refugee
replaced
with others
as surely as the summer
disappears passing into the winter
of the perspective you will come to adopt
before you are finished
with his empty words
what proves your own slavery
the story of how you
came to harm,
like the fever
you had
as a child
like the movie
from 1978
played back in silence
the heat of a room,
of a summer in the filth of New York City,
the woman, the memories
haunting your identity
the way
the dirt evaporates
and becomes breathing
as though
there is anything
to protect
as though you
would be better off
your anger like dust to them
newspapers gathering in the rack
waiting in the box
for a confession,
a recognition
you never received
wiping your face on a towel
hanging like a lynched memory
the piece of the wall you threw away
was my dream
the impositions of the image
the arrangement he represented and the one
you labored to forget
and see now
in the face of mine
you made
instead.