The Wall

Somewhere the sun is shining––
somewhere behind me, no doubt.
But I am facing a wall
that is gray and cracked
and reflects no sunlight.

It seems, rather, to soak up everything
that bumps against it,
thinks its thoughts around it,
sits in front of it.

It is a wall sponge.
Right now it has soaked up
every memory
I have of sun.I try to follow
that memory
into it,
but it rejects only me.

I cannot follow
anything
I have put into it––
any thought,
wish,
dream,
memory,
aspiration.

I put my hand against it
and I can feel it draining molecules.
There is a tingling sensation
as they flow out horizontally.
I try to send some bit of sensibility
along with them,
to give me a clue
as to where they go
and what they encounter
there,
but I know that it is futile.

Where every lost part of me goes,
I cannot follow.
I wonder if at death
all of me will finally
flow into the wall,

No way to know
without the ultimate sacrifice.
I have tried, out of curiosity,
to hold my breath;
but I always take that first wide gasp of air
long before unconsciousness.

I have thought of
slashing wrists,
but fail just short
of any scratchings that bring blood.

I do not know if it is fear of dying
or that I value life more than I think I do,
but I have failed that final test a time or two.
I go on living what life
I can experience,
now that I have faced the wall.

It is by choice, you know, that I sit here.
I could walk to the window
and even out the door.
I could take that long walk to the sea wall
that I used to take each morning.

I could go for coffee in the palapa beach restaurant
where I have never failed to meet
someone of my acquaintance,
or shop in the mercado
or go for a swim in the sea.

I once loved all these things.
But since the wall,
everything not the wall
has leached out of my life.
I have not chosen for this to happen,
but nonetheless it has.

Perhaps it is ambition I’ve lost to the wall—
or hope or curiosity.
Perhaps everything that kept me engaged in life
has already left me and gone into that gray world
where I cannot follow.

Now I sit here,
facing it,
acknowledging my failure
as well as its exclusivity.
Somewhere the sun is shining––
somewhere behind me, no doubt.

But I am facing a wall.

For dVerse Poets