UNGRASPING
for Kobi


You get the feeling you are dragging
an empty suitcase. Even sunlight

is suspicious, something cutting off
your vision, your moth-drawn idea of who

you are, full of flame, full of endless
circumstance, the agonizing dance toward

the mirror: one time you found the mirror
empty or was it just brimming with night, was it two o’clock

in the morning when you realized you had lost
the stick, forgotten the baton

had in fact been passed to you
long ago at the last length

of the race. Who did you lose to? Who
did you disappoint in your breathless

attempt to cross the already tattered ribbon,
knees crushed by the humbling weight

of the rest of you. O the deadly frenzy
of packing it in, beating at time with a knotted

stick, looking always behind you and hoping
that one day your shadow will release

with the crisp grace of a leaf, waving good-bye,
good-bye like a hand, a strong hand

ungrasping all it has strictly clung to,
even the graveyard of the suitcase,

even the ghostliness
of aching to be leaving.