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Open Dig

There was so much to forgive...

my birth, my alien stare,
white scar where I drew on the back
of my wrist with the knife
on your line-in-the-sand dare

as you crossed your arms and watched.

There is nothing to forgive.

Death slowly opened you to me
those last years
like another language
found in a hermit's sharp cave,

the possibility of barter
gone out of it,
but the angel of its images

still armed and radiant.
I unfold imaginary scrolls of you,

translucent paper wings,

and read what is preserved.

Commentators will argue
over which words are prayer
and which are sarcasm.

I only knew sometimes, myself.

Barter has gone out of this tongue
Which is best left to specialists now.

So why am I still haggling
in your foreign marketplace
where all goods are gone,
all sales made final?

It's because I know your silence
and expect you are still
inflating prices

So everything I want
will be out of reach again.

I'll sit in your dust for years.

The sun of anger still heats this ground.

I'll never admit
this ancient market is closed.

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