There was a redhead once
in tight jean cutoffs
He hears soft melodies without words,
sees open spaces, mountains, deltas,
from airplane windows
His reading habits are gone—
not able to concentrate, scans
gray days, stares
ahead at nothing
Sounds he once knew,
voices, flashbacks
Abruptly stopping,
heads cocked over a bridge,
pointing to a swirl
What was that they saw?
There are walls with ivy on them,
but from where?
Were they walls where
enemy soldiers were stood
in rows and shot,
or did he just dream that?
He sees her face on every other
woman walking by
She could be the woman
from the forgetting time
before the time of forgetting
the lost mother, the childhood
that never was