This journey is a long trail of burning sand
where the oasis at the end is a spotlit stage.
For every step taken is a delicate photograph,
a bundle of memories traced onto glass panes.
Everything I wanted and sought to keep whole
were brittle sheets of light I squeezed to my breast:
The long-gone place I wanted to see,
promises of a bright future now glowing dim,
shards of a broken dream stuck to my calloused sole.
Pale faces I thought I recognized
thrown back at me through mirrors,
their silver slivers wedged beneath burnt skin.
The inner churches I’ve held onto
have slowly crumbled in my chest,
fragments of myself lodged into my porous soul.
At the end of the coarse path, the water shimmers clear,
shining for the jagged edges I carried with me.
The colored beams that shine still from my hand,
I place slowly on a thousand-fissured portrait
whose prismatic hues cascade down my face
with yesteryear’s fractures finding residence
in a kaleidoscope of mangled light
for the empty irises that taught me how to see. F
