1.
if I were to tell you a story
about me, I'd have to make
sure that I would escape you
or survive it once I'm back in it -
2.
I tried to hide in tales
but was always ferreted out,
even when I had the exit
on the other side of the entrance -
3.
was it the open ending I hoped
for which would make me see
what the beginning might have been
with a displaced vocabulary -
4.
words uttered, written and read
are already the past, a counter
clock-wise future that is to be
only if it's something that was -
5.
and if the story is there, to begin
with, which side will you be on,
ill I be left on, once you take sides
not to fall into a hole in the middle -
6.
dogs bark tonight on the other side
of the dividing line, not at the wind
swept branches, nor to be let
back into blacked-out houses -
7.
I am, again, at the passage that was
crossed out, a diagonally curved scar,
the sum of all in the nothing
down the faultline of memory -
8.
beyond that, everything unsayable
has been said, and everything said
became unsayable, so you, too,
having to choose, will be willing
to remember only what at the end
you believe can be forgotten -
9.
the air is odourless and quiet,
briefly, and we have recognized
the plot, looking invisible at each
other across the field and inked river,
yet I cannot bring myself to forget
what I do not want to remember:
10.
you've had me in sight all along,
amused by my efforts to understand
the archived purpose of the message -
still, I ask you to pray for me -
Mario Susko