Exaltation 1

"I think "time."
Then "cargo.""
E. Myles

I entered behind your shadow.   
I looked for you in all your manifestations.   
But all I came across were peas
created by imagination, by the art of surprise
and the art of being surprised,
of being out of oneself.

I found only traces,
only thin fragments of memories.
I wrapped them around my hands,
as Theseus does with thread.
But I always came up with the same thing:
meaningless skeins of cloth in my hands.

I ended up where your existence is.
I am knee-deep in pore and not at all afraid
of not being. I meet you and am finally not
surprised by you. You smile like the ink that
greets the idleness of the paper. Your embrace
is like a new geometric transformation, 

consisting only of shadows
and the voice of you postmortem.
I am becoming a darkest sea,
an ocean of petroleum (of crow-feathers).
And I am forever overwhelmed
by the emptiness of your absence.

Немель, 2022