Life, a bearer of signs, each sign color coded
for snow or rain or sleep. HAVE YOU SEEN,
HAVE YOU, and fumbling for a night light,
I go out beyond the estuary, repeat over
and over the hospice address on York Street.
Did I not see there, shredding your childhood
with ease, and how in the hide and seek
of our years, you slipped out of the yard,
suddenly beyond my grasp. HAVE YOU SEEN,
HAVE YOU, and struggling with a torn sign,
I watch a stranger cross the headland.
Are you not repeating life over, in the skin
of another, the landscape we shared vanished,
but for the playground, our mother waving
her color coded sign, HAVE YOU SEEN,
HAVE YOU . . .
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