A Strand of Loose Hair

Painting by Vlastimil Hofman


a strand of loose hair


listening to his voice
she plays back to
him over thirty
years ago or
even today
he says
that is
not
me
the face
reflected in
the afternoon
light of a window
as he glances walking

past on his way to work
that is not his face not his body
no one can hear him the way he hears
himself nor does anyone see him as he sees
himself or you reading this poem silently
or aloud
do not hear yourself reading the way
the poem hears you
the way the poem sets itself
upon the screen or a page
or if a god appears manifests flesh
in hand how does she feel revealing
something of a mere appearance a light
carrying a surface or
waves pulsing heat & not heat
a glance that means what as
if a smile or a strand of
loose hair a folding

of a hand or a tilt
of the head or
the actor in
a dressing
room
weeping
remembering
when a boy tumbled
off a cliff into a gray sea
o Lear o Icarus o child of ghostly
days who bears the unseen untranslated
the buried—what gulf gestures
with lowered eyes
how a hawk limped on the side of the road
dying & he kneeled
silently near until the eyes dulled—
& he took the thing home & had it stuffed

this flesh is not my flesh (it is)
this blood is not my blood (it is)

Richard Lance Williams

Posted over on More Poetry