Poems
I look at the briefcase with my
brother’s poems
I look at my manuscript
lying on the table,
alone.
and I think of other manuscripts
in closets somewhere.
Like faded flowers
in a drawer they contain
an essence of what was there.
Like faded flowers
pressed between the finger and the thumb
pressed between memory and
sensation, memory and
hope and if my fellow man were to say
“greatness, this is”
would that make the paper less
faded
***