TIME AND TIDE
The dream in which I see myselfborn. The dream of momin her one good dresskneeling to Thérèse, Saint of Lisieux,The Little Flower who died of TB;the irreality of her cheeks,in that light, like sculpted Carrara marblepears as hard as the tumorin my father’s neck, flat white in scanshe fanned out on a sewing table, to stare athis fate; to know its contours—I can trace for you the mountain,later, we scattered with hisface, I can show you the puff of himlike magnesium smokestalled above an old photo flash-lamp,but I can’t play the sound of himlaughing before he was ill.Is this what the book meant, observingof mirrors their symmetryis sinister, a subtractive delusion?Is each keyhole smaller than the last?
