I should throw my gold watch
into the ocean and become
timeless. I'd stand more chance
here as a gourd, making
more gourds, as a belly
making more. Kiss your
thin icon goodbye, sink memory
& hope. Join the round
round dance. Fuck the future.

Years do odd things to identity.
What does it mean to say
I am that child in the photograph
at Kishamish in 1935?
Might as well say I am the shadow
of a leaf of the acacia tree
felled seventy years ago
moving on the page the child reads.
Might as well say I am the words she read
or the words I wrote in other years,
flicker of shade and sunlight
as the wind moves through the leaves.