(This is the time for looking back, knowing
back is not forward, and back can’t go back)
(open a book from a long-quiet shelf)
This the time for spiraling forward,
forward and inward, and for looking back
(remember a minute, a month, a weekend)
(and back, looking forward, and inward, and back)
(say the last words you remember to speak, and
listen, and then they say a new self.)

First published in Fulcrum