i was whole
or, a whole, as a child -

my security was whole:
my secure being

i was a relation of my mother & father
i was a relation of everything i saw
i was of a community, i was one
with my cat's adventures,
and the red robin's

i was one with the trees
i climbed, & with
the interesting sky

i was one.

later, i was divorced from
my father, and later,
my mother,
i was divorced from
good friends by virtue of moving,
and later still my daughter moved
out, and then i realized that
the ancient whole had become dis-assembled,
piecemeal.

what was supposed to happen, then?
was the whole supposed to be reconstituted?
and by whom? was this a personal responsibility?
or, is the whole an ideal, never to be achieved?

one can feel misshapen:
doesn't fit, mis-fit,
as told by others:

why aren't you clear?
why are you so weird?
sometimes i cant understand you.
you are a strange man.
i'm going to blow your fucking
head off.

these messages from the gallery -
rare, but there.

art, women, books, ideas
deign to fill the holes of the whole

on a timeline of a lifetime.