Slow MoverThe Cenotaph
There are places in me
where I go to mourn
what is not there.
An empty stone,
a name without a body,
a date without a doorway.
The precious thing is buried elsewhere—
in a house that no longer stands,
in a field grown over strange weeds,
in a voice I cannot quite recover,
in the face of someone
before disappointment taught them
how to look away.
I bring flowers
to the wrong place.
Still, I come.
Because memory does not always know
where the dead are buried.
Sometimes, it only knows
where to kneel.
And perhaps that is what I am:
a cenotaph of my former selves,
a monument raised far from the grave,
a body still walking
with epitaphs hidden under the skin.
Here lies the boy who believed.
Here lies the song unsung.
Here lies the photo with the blurred face.
Here lies the joy that went ahead of me
and never came back.
But the mausoleum is empty.
That is the terror.
That is the mercy.
For what is not here
may not be wholly lost.
What is buried far away
may still be sending roots beneath the earth,
their ghostly fingers stretching toward me.
The Cenotaph Triad
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8XJKNUT2
Lucka
Hans-Peter Gauster
Matthias Henkel