Some of my traits are so hard
to face
that I keep them enclosed
in an armour of denial,
like the Ukrainians
the fierce wrath
of the Chernobyl meltdown
in their sarcophagus

...and which - would they break through
the numbness – would rip me
to shreds...
- so I bounce off those reminiscences
like light of day
off a perfect steel sphere
in a science fiction story
by Isaac Asimov,
as soon as I sense
that rancid taste
of cruelty and betrayal
back in my mind,
back in my antecedence,
back in a forlorn part
of my journey
up to the present

Some consolation perchance comes
with the story of Saul
turning into Paul,
and of evil wrongdoers
in the buddhist narrative,
who transformed
into radiant bodhisattvas

But last night I called for Mommy
in a dream
that opened the hidden landscapes
within
to my mind's eye

I couldn't recall her telephone number,
rummaging through the house
in utter desolation,
desperate
for my mother's generous,
unfailing consolation,
the dream not letting on
the slightest recognition
of the fact
that she passed, at age 95,
in 2007

I ran down an Escher staircase
in an anxiety more spacious
than love,
and I know The Wolf
when I cry it

I lie on my back
in The Great Ship of Dreams
in the wake and void
of this dream,
while a circling fly
behind the curtain
over at the balcony window
soothes me
with its spatial buzz,
the day rising to the challenge,
out of the swamps,
up the mountain screes