Sylvia

I could see at once
You and I were the same
Mortal flesh, darkness
Behind your eyes--
The same grasp of emptiness
Peers from my shattered mirrors.

I knew without voice
The same worms twisted
In your brain's valleys
As mine--knew down
To my neurons which writhe
In synaptic flash.

Your presence is locked
In my haunted vaults, flat
As pressed leaves, a remnant
Memory without your flesh,
A dimension I never felt.

...I was ten
That lasting afternoon--
You at least thrice my years,
Trapped in a dimness your life
Caught, but not your soul.
Back, back you rolled the stream years
Until you reveled in prayer shadow,
An oven child, Nazi Daddy's little Jew.