I search the resident faces flowing by
to find those I abandoned when my semi-voluntary
most certainly temporary departure from my growthplace
gradually segued into stone.
Let’s be rational here.
Hope against hope,
I conjure up the people of my past:
Present yourselves!
Right now!
Right here!
In front of me!
My spells dispel.
Let’s be rational here.
What would I do with them,
these relics without encounter or connection
between dated origin and sudden apparition?
What could they bring me but fresh slashes
to detachment wounds long scabbed over and healed?
Let’s be rational here.