it comes by way of slow subtraction?
I’m filing taxes, simple math,
reading a line of instructions – then it’s
a page of numbers that make no sense,
computation whose point I’ve lost.

Early sun creeps over the table,
gilds the scratch pads, lights up worksheets.
Out there, traffic, yard birds gleaning
seeds flung in patterns that might be runes.
This chain of numbers must lead somewhere . . .

I loathe the self that can’t see clearly.
I’ve been capable, too, -- and know
I’m at the mercy of something large –
absence itself, its chunks of memory
calving off the polar shelf.

Brittle hands have gripped my own,
even as they let me go. Now
I don’t own these words, these numbers;
they snap into meaning when they choose.
Between them, vacancy stretches out.