You stand at the end of the wave-alcove

holding your father’s letters in your hands

 

a prayer, the face on the disappearing

photograph that is and isn’t your father

 

a frail body washed out to the shore

in a future about the soul of the sea

 

memories of the wars you’ve survived

swell in your cracked pockets

 

you are a child wearing shoes too small

in the frozen coldness of winter

 

a middle-aged man dragging the body

of your mother on your shoulders

 

muffled cries stranded in the dark

of your heart

 

political games, razor blade diamonds

you cut yourself on

 

November fog rises over the Sava river

worlds you’ve travelled to overflow the banks

 

stories you’ve reported on, your hands barely

touching the blackness of the earth under the rain

 

someone’s else tears, not yours.