alibi/

You were clapping louder than the seals,
In the dream I remembered.
Your right shoe prodding at the ice
They surrounded me with.

It has always been the voice of a man,
That has led me to lose time.

First it was my father with that bicycle,
He dreamt would free him of our walks.
Then it was some heartless Dean’s signature
rejecting my dreams in a brusque three, four lines.

At last you arrived with your foreign accent,
smiling in the aisles of our local commissary,
I spilt something on your shoes one night,
spent all of these years apologizing.

The young doctor signs my cast neatly,
Confident that I will heal in no time.
one of the Nurses offers a ride,
politely insists to see me inside.

she has spent her young life,
doctoring wounds back to place,
discovering, as I knew
we don’t have a staircase.