UNTITLED SELF-PORTRAIT
Waiting to remember receipt of a secret message he had
Sent to a past self some time before; A man singing in his
Sleep dreams out loud instead of receiving an S.O.S. from
A future self warning of the perils of midnight swimming
In the heart. All he ever wanted was to be left alone long
Enough to become someone new. Now there were two
More of him and no one left to be anyone else. He wants
That last chance he got over again, over again; The broken
And curled up violin string of his life, out of tune but true,
Rising up like a hair on a brush when a hand passes over it,
Twisting itself into a line of poetry in a language all its own,
Mimicking perfectly the shape of the wound in his cracked
Locket heart. Close up against both sides of a melting mirror
Of solitude, he grows homesick for places he has never been.
