It was the way his
familiarest of initials
Looked up at him, forsaken
Off the official document.
He harkened back to the way that they danced
In purple crayon
(smears and small triangular
clumps of shedded wax)
They never lost their solemnity, those three letters
(always shoulder to shoulder.)

But now he used them promiscuously,
Flinging them throughout
the labyrinth of cubicles
through which he led his familiar feet each day
(because they were blinded by those shiny black shoes)

sometimes he forgot
what his feet looked like.

If he remembered anything about sucking the frosting
off the tails of twisted yellow candles,
Or catching baby frogs
Or aching
from the bite of an injustice so in
it tore a gaping hole
in what he knew,
It was that those things had happened to
A child he didn’t know.

When he knew that child,
he knew him
so well they didn’t need to talk.
But as that child got big
(and the world started
to look at him,
instead of vice-versa)
They lost their symmetry
and never quite had the
“ahem time and resources
shall
we
say
to invest in the costly endeavor of reunification”

It was when those familiarest of initials etched
in that scrawl that was
His only scrawl
turned their backs on him
in a gesture that clearly stated
we don’t know you anymore

that he forgot
what his face looked like.