1

Your name bends out of reach,

             the final spike shreds the skins

of my remembering.


2

Engraved on stone, words

             tell: they came to this country

they lived here, and died.


3

To show you scarlet

             bougainvillea in autumn –

your dark hound refused it.


4

Throw waiting hours

             down like coins in black water:

lost, they shake like stars.


5

The name rests, a bench

             by the sea: fingertip touch

on each breaking wave.


6

If everything ran

             out, each vessel empty, clean,

would muscle turn to stone?


7

Forgetting is like

             light on sharp edged fences,

clears spaces between.