hænep

At the end, he said, No Metaphors! Nothing is like anything else.

Except he said to me before he said that, Make your hands a hammock for me. So there was one.

He said, Not even the rain—he quoted the poet—not even the rain has such small hands. So there was another.

At the end, I wanted to comfort him. But what I said was, Sing to it. The Arabian proverb: When danger approaches, sing to it.

Except I said to him before I said that, No metaphors! No one is like anyone else. And he said, Please.

So—at the end, I made my hands a hammock for him.

My arms the trees.

--Amy Hempel.

And now I find myself
with nothing
left to say.

The old human gestures, twenty centuries old, are forgotten in  decade. Time, like a bridge, draws to a close. Did you make it in time? 

The last light of the day. You run back with your heart in your mouth, the darkness falling around you in the streets. Everything in the old country lives and breathes in the shade.