Enigma

by Alan Shapiro

The earliest enigma was outside
the window above the kitchen sink
the way the branches full of leaves
could be waving in at shadows
of leaves and branches on the far
wall waving back, while in the air
between the wall and window
there was only air just air empty
of tree and shadow through which
the one must have been turning right
before my eyes without my seeing
into the other. Yet when I’d climb up
onto the counter and stand there
tall as my father what waved on the wall
waved on me too now, on my shirt,
along my arms, from pant leg waving
the shadows out of hiding,
out from the undercover of the air.

My body felt it more the more I couldn’t
think it, couldn’t not, as if the body
shared an understanding
I was kept from of this being
in the way of what wasn’t there
unless I stood there in the way of it —
not knowing until later it was just
the universe continuing its accidental
long-before-me detonation
from inside itself to where long after
me or house or family there’d be
no inside left except as shadow
everywhere without a solid
thing to show it what it was.

I held my hand up to see it wash
across my fingers disappearing
in the spaces between them — and
I knew just then not knowing how
if I could have seen my face
it would have been there too,
cheek nose lips eyes entangled
with it signaling by means of me
a message never meant for me, what
ever since has never let me climb down
from the counter where I couldn’t
feel my skin crawl with an alien
body’s mother tongue of shadow.