Chalk and Slate

Each week I wipe the slate

and wait, until

the wet sheen dulls

to a blur, then take chalk

like a school girl

and write the current week’s

comings and goings you find

hard to recall—

nothing special, just

scheduled moments,

a visit from friends or family

or to a doctor—

as you put it, this and that, this and that.

You call events “positions” now,

and the word

also covers place and time.

How much more time

will it take

to figure what our own

positions are?

I’m trying to be poised, and I’m trying

to fall apart,

I’d cry if I could. What stops me

is not the act

or erasure—not just yet—

but the wet black slate

in which

no face appears.