Dialogue

There is still time—
a surplus of hours
spread before me.
 
With a handful of it
I call you by name.
 
Through practice—
or through
some militant clarity—
I touch what they call
“liking,”
and life’s work
slips into my hands.
 
Perhaps I was mistaken—
no matter.
Mistakes themselves
are not strange here,
among image-trees,
where many have crafted
darkness
to shield from assault.
 
I saved those I knew
in fragments of talk,
in the existence of dialogue—
lifting sudden hatreds
back into life,
resuscitating them.
 
But from that knowledge
I longed to be free.
 
Had we met in time,
I might have saved myself—
even in war,
even in the field of battle,
walking alone.
 
If I had your voice,
perhaps everything
would have turned differently.
 
Even now,
there is time—
time to survive in defeat,
time to shape
one last dialogue
in the dark.