Sharon Bryan, American poet, born February 10, 1943, is the author of the poetry collections Salt Air (1983), Objects of Affection (1987), Flying Blind (1996), and Sharp Stars (2009), which won the Isabella Stewart Gardner Poetry Award.
BEYOND RECALL
Sharon Bryan
Nothing matters
to the dead,
that’s what’s so hard
for the rest of us
to take in—
their complete indifference
to our enticements,
our attempts to get in touch—
they aren’t observing us
from a discreet distance,
they aren’t listening
to a word we say—
you know that.
but you don’t believe it,
even deep in a cave
you don’t believe
in total darkness,
you keep waiting
for your eyes to adjust
and reveal your hand
in front of your face—
so how long a silence
will it take to convince us
that we’re the ones
who no longer exist,
as far as X is concerned,
and Y, that they’ve forgotten
every little thing
they know about us,
what we told them
and what we didn’t
have to, even our names
mean nothing to them
now—our throats ache
with all we might have said
the next time we saw them.