*

*************************

if the floor fell away it would be visceral, immediate, so "real"

but as the security of those next steps curdles and fades it is another near intangible...large and jagged as a cliff face yet fleshed in vapor and fog

-

\


4589 lost keys

8634 missed turns

1467 lost emails

3112 texts not sent

4 names forgotten

29,872 words washed clean from memory

a day has passed in so many hours

*

the suit hung on a hanger at attention ....hung .....the weight just enough to not break it in two

he once knew what he bought it for

20 minutes in some store on some street for a new __

it was 32 steps to that door

*

it is like counting raindrops....every one will count the few before they run clean away.....the rest just falls and then later is gone....so such are the syllables of names precisely cut clean away

*

34 miles of wire.... 500 pounds of wood, nails and mud

in 1944 fumiko touched his hand across the fence in the camp...... and it breaks like ice cubes ...away....

*

he lived to be 87 years old...he traveled across 2 continents to bring his family to a place to start over he died in 192- his name was-- his family and their sweat and blood led to this town of ---- that we know today

and each year a letter washes away

*

the tape began at one point...ended at another...later was erased.....the start erased when the tape played to the middle and so forth ever unspooling..

*

2:37 in some city...in some hall....in some moment of leaving....details washed away later in time......45 steps away .... 3 drinks..that thought that empowered her..years later pushed her to ...

*

that thing inside her gleam when she looked away...no one saw it.....but she knew...held it close

*

34 pages of text of what should have been said 8 metaphors that could have said what hung in the air that day

*

112 hours of lost sleep due to those memories..... 345 turns in bed shaking

45 names not properly remembered floating without deserved glory in the ether that fills the guts of hours and time past

*

3894 pounds of brick 5467 pounds of glass 1678 windows precisely cut

487 steps of stairs

of the long demolished buildings downtown on this intersection that are no more

*

185 pounds 5 foot 8 26 freckles 28 years precise measurements of the disappeared nameless man you saw that one time