I Barely Know the Questions

I Barely Know the Questions

(“None of the Pharisees could answer Jesus’ question, and after that day no one was brave enough to ask him any more questions.” Matthew 22:46)

I don’t know the answers either,
I barely know the questions. I see a self,
a ghost in the distance,
that is so much better than my existence. My
neighbor’s
husky looks out the window at me
and I wished I looked at myself with the same
all-inclusive eyes.
But I feel I feed on lies, on shells and masks,
on past efforts that now have worn me thin.
There is no beginning from where I sit and the ending
is longer and darker than I want to admit. So I sit in the flurry
of eddies formed where never, not yet, and what was meant to be
meet. Watch me spin. You will see a new face every revolution.

There are kisses I remember, smiles that fade in and out,
the conversations that frightened me then and frighten me again.
The question marks end and begin every sentence,
the conversations straddle bus seats I’ve forgotten.
And the earth keeps moving like iron wheels on rusting tracks;
they’ve changed the destinations, time erodes like that,
and I keep looking for ways to go back to

Find the part of me I left behind like lost luggage
strewn across the scenery.
I did not know what it meant then, I know too well now and
wish for the serenity of staying up all night with friends
whose names I barely remember. The ache, I think,

I was born with it. What were you born with Jesus,
and how did you travel between cavity and crowd?