There’s nothing to say
I never knew you
Really
Except to know
that part of you I am
I was four
In that echoing church
Hollow pews
I said a prayer
Told a story
Fell off the podium
Got right back up
all the way from Phoenix
So impressed
In your fancy clothes
and Sunday shoes
I was nine
Sleeping in my mother’s room
Sliding underneath the sheets
Staying in the heat of April
I was fifteen
Running in the rain
On North Randolph Road
The only summer storm I saw
In August
You were laughing and smoking your cigarette
Down to the longest of ashes
I was eighteen
I was nineteen
I was twenty, twenty one
Turning through years
While they turned you in your bed
Has it always been about me?
I guess that’s what I take-
(so much more
then what i give)
That part of you I am
Circling
And known.
01/24/2002