You Wonder

You think you know yourself
But after five decades
truth feels elusive, malleable.

You await further instructions.

You wonder what happened when you were young
With your mother, without your mother.

You don’t remember
You wonder what happened to make you not remember
Or to make you forget

But there’s nothing.
You wonder if maybe there is
Actually nothing
to remember.

You think you know yourself.
You wonder if the way to truth is
Not so much a stack of gauzy veils to be rendered
But more a thick crust of old paint, one coat hardened into
Another and another and another.

You wait for your quotidian angel
to sweep you up in a rapture.

You wonder. You don’t remember.