from that country/when things don't stay

her clear eyes sent from your homeland
it is vacation and a child's day
and her a child's face, a child's hair
clipped in place by a jeweled clutch
a child's smile is there
and so she plays to record the moments
in which you see, behind the fading colors,
yourself loving her more and more

in my absence, i grow
less fond but fatter, a single
but broken piece
of sponge, full of holes
dirty from use, soaking up
the splatters from the kitchen
counter, moved by an aging
hand i can no longer

recognize, nor do i care to, now--
it does not matter,
today, anymore.

.