This is not a weeping board,
nor a garden of suffering
followed by a hill of greater suffering.
There will be no crying in this class.
That is what the playground is for.
No being held by the wrist,
no animals moaning in the wild.
I’m not going to tell you
what happened on the staircase,
or reveal the hiding places of my childhood.
Everything in this hard place
is designed to disappear.
The moon drops faster than usual
behind a lurid billboard.
A man vanishes from his place on a footbridge.
This is where I was last seen
walking to the town post office
in the shape of a white envelope
and you are forsaken on a platform,
holding an umbrella which has ceased to exist.