(no essays) a long goodbye 4

In time, I will give in, finally
Into the overwhelming lake of words
Into the river of words flowing
Into sea, and eventually
Into the ocean of forgetfulness.

The reader (the world) (you) becomes 
Finally my faceless intimate friend
Sitting beside me on the cliff
Overlooking mists of distance,
Pasts, dreams, futures... our feet

Dangling on the edge and the sky
Forever with a silver still sun.
And I will tell in the way my father
Once told of his childhood stories,
My own childhood, misty with disuse

And untelling, kept too long in a room
Within a room, within a room barred
By hardwood door, by steel door, 
By brick wall meant as much to conceal
As to say, "Move on. It is done here."

Beside the wall, sometimes a table.
On the table, flowers from the yard.
By the flowers, tea.
Sometimes, beside the wall, a bed.
I knock on the wall. And sometimes

Tell a memory in that exact way
Telling fails to tell all the details:
Exact hue of the afternoon, exact
Feeling of the felt at the bottom
Of a chess piece I was playing,

Learning consequences and consequences
Long before a single move is made.
How did my own father failed to see?
He taught me the game. "Pensar. 
Pensar." Can a child see futures

When a decision is made? I inherited
Many things from my father, I'm afraid.
Including the older face on the mirror.
The same face my lovers see 
At night, in the morning, when I think

I am alone, placing palms on the wall 
Holding the flood of words into 
Becoming few and fewer still.