Day 194

We were told our words would be enough, 
That they would unlock gates, place stone upon stone.
We believed they could make a garden.  Feed the children.
(I reach for the latch.  I switch on a lamp.  My hand
touches the rough skin of avocado, smoothness of mango.)
I hold my friend’s infant, feel how we are made
of salt and memory. How our voices strike fire.
or they are silenced.  Once I stood with a man 
in the ruins of the house
he had lived in as a child.  Some tiles remained, 
the outlines of rooms.  So tenderly he fingered
one broken tile, pressed it to his face, took in its smell,
its coolness.  Years held by that shard.