I waft into the backyard at 5 o’clock

where a blind psychic senses me before

I sense myself

                           Her face pickles, her ire

stinks like an electrical fire

                                                   She searches

for me inside invisibility, throws dirt

against the air, hoping to hear it strike

my ghost, a blind man’s bluff, I say

                       here I am

and now that I’m found by sound

she flings stings of anger, gravel sprays

from her motorbike scratching off, I say

             you can hit me all you want

and she stops

                         I wrap my arms around her

hold her in prayer to steady the shake

of sobbing until she’s still and we merge

in a glowing sphere of affection

                                                          The crowd

picks me up from the ground, but already

she’s giving a goodbye speech I can’t hear

but understand because I listen

                                                            She runs

out of words. Silence becomes a hole no one

knows how to fill

                                 She grabs her motorbike

                                 gives the starter a kick

The bike speeds riderless, swine stampeding

straight to the rich lady’s house

                                                           and crashes

through the sidelight into rooms of fragile

treasure

                 I run inside, the bike’s on its side,

exhausted, a panting tongue that becomes

a guitar strung with bones of a saint I strum

         as I sing to you this hallowed song