no re-entry

This is how I learn to grow courage
from the raw material of your lips.

I leave the place and pretend
there is no re-entry, no front

yard to revisit. Not often,
backtracking’s the way to move

forward, just this once.
There is no end to where memory leads.

It branches wildly, and without consideration
of my emotions, or where I want to rest -

the day we took our shirts off and ate
the ocean; the boat to China; you

in high school and me in high school
not knowing you, the Word of Salinger

falling upon me like summer rain - This
is how you feel, drenched, when I cannot

touch you anymore and homeless man
sells me a paper. I read the foreign

headlines as to feel without
memory, travel further from a source,

to be more weightless. Fibers
of your blue shirt tickle my arm.

I am clothed again. I am reacting
with the paces that once took me

to your wailing wall. The Word of
the be-pop sugar girls plays

from a passing car. The driver
double-takes - maybe remembers

me. I think he looks
nothing like you.