I don't know

I don’t know this woman

who was called my mother

once in a world so far away

from me, my body does not remember

anything anymore. No longer can

I walk into the unknown

there is nothing. The “I don’t know” is unknown

to me. No secret left. How to be a woman

was nothing she taught of course. I can

no longer draw her name: Mother

into a circle of burning colours, away,

the ocean near, somewhere I remember

I was before. I don’t know what I remember

from all those years in an universe unknown

not familiar at all. Run away

stranger, swim to another island, woman

of water, woman of tears. Be a mother

at last to the stones. I don’t know, if you can

hide in the bushes any longer. If you ever can

know who you are, truly, remember

the depth of a truth, your name, I don’t know, my mother,

the urge to find you is gone. May you remain unknown

to me, less pain. For sure. I don’t know! Any woman

could be her, even me, and she could be far away

standing in front of me. A land of no meaning, away

away from every touch, ever so slightly can

I feel the brush of her soul on my skin. I remember

her, a wounded walled in woman

always withdrawing from everything. Unknown

remains this world to her, hiding in the middle, my mother

could be, for all I can say, a mermaid really, a woman

living under water, far away, in a world unknown even to

herself: mother, tell me, is what I remember really you?

(Sestina February 19^th, 2013)