Tabula Rasa
by Peter Bloxsom
When I am young again,
when clocks and calendars have been reset
back to my birth hour, my birth gasp,
will I, on entering then
the told and retold world of fists’ dumb clasp,
of suck and lung-loud wail and bassinet,
retain some faint recall,
a déjà vu sensation at the teat?
Or must it be that when this cycle’s done
a dark veil covers all,
the snake-slide ending at a blank Square One
from which the all-unknown world will repeat?
Wan sunlight warms me still;
I step with care around the serpent’s head:
live in the only cycle that I know,
not heading fast downhill.
Thus far, it’s only in my dreams I go
where I am young again, where I am dead.