3

napo

I don’t believe~

you 
when you send me down to the corner store and I watch the windows
as my feet carry through each crack of every pavement and you disappear
into dark behind curtains or him or the simple blackness of my eyes not seeing forever and ever

you are gone
even if it is for five minutes,
you are gone
and I forget, I think.

I don’t believe
summer autumn winter exist
because I can see flowers budding
trees reaching out with their clumsy pink and rosy fingers
tea soaked and cut plum

tell me
how are they dried out and dead
when I pluck their branches
and they sing?

I cannot be expected to believe
that I had blue eyes
that my hands were small
or my smile was wide?�"

my skin cracks with each hand shake
and my bones
ache
and ache
something like the pressure of a faucet or a current or an ocean
pushing each rib into my small, shrivelled stomach. (replaced, soon, past? I don’t believe that either. it does not have a name and it is not real)

I believe in the firmness
of ground
but only when I’m walking on it
or stooping close to find my handprints and footprints
from another age of wet cement
although those
I do not remember those, that name is my name but another’s
and I cannot believe

I believe in heat
rain
that everything is in vain
because there is no futurepresentpast
but only
foot, tread, rhythm
the coldness of air where the small of my back is exposed by a too short shirt and my neck
cold in spring air
curved like a turtle or an instrument, 
aged, croaking notes out as its churlish bow
is bent

I can speak
and believe
but only as long as the sounds last