Theory
____________________________________

A child’s running hard toward the height of a man,
running, picking up shiny objects along the way,
and the man, having built a great tower, is gazing
down, squinting, trying to find the child. —To raise

memory to the vividness of the present. It was
a moment of hands, eyes, salt. Sheets, white, knew
flesh and let it sink. He remembers a blue shirt
slipping off a hanger. That was long ago, almost

a life. Now I’m learning to feel the invisible bones
of her face, dressing them with my own
dissolving touch. One theory of time’s a moving knife’s
edge, reflecting all, and all that it touches shines.

 

From Tall If by Mark Irwin, 2008

New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University, Dept. of English,
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
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