Some of my traits are so hard

to face

that I keep them enclosed

in an armour of denial,

like the Ukrainians

the fierce wrath

of the Chernobyl meltdown

in their sarcophagus

...and which - would they break through

the numbness – would rip me

to shreds...

- so I bounce off those reminiscences

like light of day

off a perfect steel sphere

in a science fiction story

by Isaac Asimov,

as soon as I sense

that rancid taste

of cruelty and betrayal

back in my mind,

back in my antecedence,

back in a forlorn part

of my journey

up to the present

Some consolation perchance comes

with the story of Saul

turning into Paul,

and of evil wrongdoers

in the buddhist narrative,

who transformed

into radiant bodhisattvas

But last night I called for Mommy

in a dream

that opened the hidden landscapes

within

to my mind's eye

I couldn't recall her telephone number,

rummaging through the house

in utter desolation,

desperate

for my mother's generous,

unfailing consolation,

the dream not letting on

the slightest recognition

of the fact

that she passed, at age 95,

in 2007

I ran down an Escher staircase

in an anxiety more spacious

than love,

and I know The Wolf

when I cry it

I lie on my back

in The Great Ship of Dreams

in the wake and void

of this dream,

while a circling fly

behind the curtain

over at the balcony window

soothes me

with its spatial buzz,

the day rising to the challenge,

out of the swamps,

up the mountain screes