Where the Nineties Lie

go look if you must,
where they are, those years that passed,
hollowed-out days and kamikaze nights,
folded and creased,
out of the sun’s knowing reach;
put your hand through
that unremembered morass,
does she rustle in the echo of your breath,
a poem whose words have withered away,
memory holding an empty notebook
in its silent bones;
what is left of that day
when the moon turned tricks in the river,
silver arches heaving in her crescent arms,
how does it feel, that freedom,
decomposed, it’s insides peeling
flaccid and parched,
all those lines we drew,
dividing spaces, names,
tips of unyielding smiles sawn off
to fit our stencilled squares;
go look if you must,
the nineties are unravelling,
somewhere there,
sift through the ashen residue,
elbow deep in lifeless weeks,
the fetid air drawing you
into her timeless lair;
go look if you must,
carry a compass, a map,
mark your sky with motionless stars;
the unlived past is a nubile mistress,
i’m not sure
from where she lies,
there is a way,
any way,
back home.