CASEY

(a poem trying to remember itself)

(a diptych in two silences)

I.

she

wasn’t—

perfect

but in the small

untranslated

rooms

of her choosing

she

held

me

not the

passing‑off

the

early‑release

the

shadow‑kept

story

no—

she

lifted

my

name

into the open

air

as if

it were

light

learning

how

to stay

II.

from 1962

he

did

what

single men

do;

in the soft blur of women already named Easy

and beds became doors he kept walking through

leaving small unfinished echoes behind

children who decades later found a name that didn’t turn toward them

and I—

closing a door never open to me

simply let it close

-me