The negative space between your world and mine,
               which began as the year separating our births,
will inevitably end as a chasm.

Static pauses in your speech unsettle me as we talk over the phone.
I wonder which words to use to express myself
                while struggling to make sense of why speaking would help.
I have learned the closest communication occurs in gestures, both musical and non.
As Coltrane kisses the atmosphere through space and time and my car stereo,
                I am reminded of the silent desert stillness broken by the indeterminate drumming
                of rapid repeating fire that does not fill my days.

I miss you prior to your actual absence.

Muti killings happen every day one thousand miles from here,
                and children disappear- more often for less- much closer.
Currency is converted based on equations and standards that always change,
                while I speak no French and very little English.

Our memories betray history, and even my failures feel unique.
Somewhere, someone never met in this life,

                feels isolation’s painful a priori.

If countries fight like brothers,
          then all will eventually be forgiven.
I wonder if land has sensory memory of a time when things weren’t so divided.
I do.

jda
7/6/11