I Meet a Man from Botswana

He didn’t shake my hand,
he used it as a fulcrum

lifting me into his amber eyes
which bore tunnels through mine

to my naked brain.
His convincing voice –so sincere–

as though nice to meet you
was Truth. I believed him

while his eyes, his voice chimed
throughout the rest of my afternoon

like the Mourning Doves
I’d listen to from a pile

of my grandmother’s comforters:
not gone, but shifted

to that place where feather
memories compress to down,

where, if we’re not careful, we
forget we inhabit ancient seas

and sleep wrapped in ancient flight.