Jamais vu

You were born without a name

clothes handed down with sweat stains

not your own imposter

never seen

by false doubles who called you their child

you were nothing and you were everything

an unglued magic lifting off an empty table

set for nobody

you slept in the rafters of your ancestors

unable to articulate their absence

I recall the jars you had by your bedside

each one contained a scream

you stoppered and kept private

at night’s fall as we lay

watching bare branches flick in and out of

wan street light

illuminated shadows dancing

like anorexic girls inspecting themselves

this way and that, before elongated mirror

you would breathe out

and with your breath came a color

violet and sorrowful

like an instrument kept in velvet case

presses just enough to leave a trace

of the sheen in its wood

no matter how deeply I moved in you

lighting your emptiness with whispers

your anchor never reached the bottom

choosing instead oblivion

not staying long enough for choice

as cast off children know only too well

the fragment of life

spilt before their awareness matured

sitting in a full room alone

rubbing the soft worn cotton of a shirt

bought for someone else