Estrangement

Only a flower immersed in its perfume,

a face anchored in its smile, -

-does it exist? doesn't it exist? lost;

if you speak to it it will return, as if after thousands of years,

perplexed, inept-it will not know its whereabouts, it will not

know

what expression to assume that will be a response.

There is a praying stool of stone in an old, abandoned street.

Every so often, at twilight, he walks down his marble stairway,

he gathers wild flowers from among the rocks,

he makes a wreath and he hangs it on his sacred image. Every

so often

some strayaway sheep stands there as if it is praying,

chewing slowly, stupidly, the withered wreath.