I’m haunted by my memories,
like the kid on the flight deck
ten miles off Marble Mountain
one hot September day in ‘68,
my age and indisputably dead,
no question, no binary toss,
so the nightmares are my problem
but they don’t stop the mourning.  

And sometimes there’s a void,
like thinking about women I loved
or thought I did, the ones who might
or tried or never felt the same,
decades and lifetimes in the dust,
the ones I’ll never hear from again,
so I hope they’re old, happy, well,
but there’s no way to open the box.    

(after the 2021 painting Unveil, by Silvia Pelissero)